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This is escalating rather quickly. It is an incredibly irresponsible move by the OpenAI board. Hypergrowing company, and now they managed to shake up their user
by mirzap 3y ago
This is escalating rather quickly. It is an incredibly irresponsible move by the OpenAI board. Hypergrowing company, and now they managed to shake up their user's trust in leadership stability. This has Adam's (D'Angelo) fingerprints all over it (for context, he did overthrow his co-founder, and Quora has been struggling ever since). This guy shouldn't sit on any board ever again.
I predict the board will be fired, and Sam and the team will return and try to contain the situation.
- chasd00 3y agoWho fires the board at a 501.3c?
- mirzap 3y agoThey resign under public pressure, I guess?
- Rastonbury 3y agoWhy would they if they are advancing the goals of the non-profit and Altman was endangering that goal?
- jdthedisciple 3y agoHahaha "advancing the goals of non profit" right after making billions. All of a sudden their amnesia stopped huh? Hypocrites and virtue signallers, the whole board.
- Rastonbury 3y agoI mean, the board doesn't have equity and the for-profit subsidiary is profit capped
- jdthedisciple 3y agoThey still stand to benefit personally, do they not?
- cthalupa 3y agoBy what mechanism? 3/4ths the remaining board have no financial interests in OpenAI.
- jdthedisciple 3y agoPersonal/moral: "Championing" non-profit after reaping the fruits of massive commercial success Monetary: Promotions and payouts (now or future)? Equity is not the only way
- cthalupa 3y agoIs it a massive commercial success? They have received significant funding, and likely have high revenue, but is it profitable? Is it in a position to be profitable? We're not in the world of companies getting decades of runway from VCs anymore, between concerns around a recession (justified or not), higher interest rates, etc. There's rapidly becoming more and more competitors in this space, as well. OpenAI has a significant first-mover advantage, but I don't know that it is insurmountable, and I doubt investors are confident that it is either. That means they're even less likely to have infinite runway. So I'm not sure there's personal/moral success at this point in the story for the board to begin with. Monetary - 3/4ths the board is independent. They are not actually employed by OpenAI. There's nothing to promote them to, and nothing in the charter of the non-profit that would give them payouts.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoThey do need billions to train the next generation models though
- andrewstuart 3y agoI absolutely guarantee you when Microsoft owns 50% that they paid $50,000,000,000 for, that Microsoft is really in charge. The board and Ilya will all be gone within a month.
- andrewstuart 3y agoTo all the commenters in this thread, here we are a few days later..... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-19/openai-negotiations-to-reinstate-altman-hit-snag-over-board-role https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-19/openai-ne... OpenAI Negotiations to Reinstate Altman Hit Snag Over Board Role OpenAI’s leaders want board removed, but directors resisting Microsoft’s Nadella leading high-stakes talks on Altman return Sam Altman Photographer: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Have a confidential tip for our reporters? Get in Touch Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal LEARN MORE By Emily Chang, Edward Ludlow, Rachel Metz, and Dina Bass November 20, 2023 at 7:17 AM GMT+11 Updated on November 20, 2023 at 7:47 AM GMT+11 A group of OpenAI executives and investors racing to get Sam Altman reinstated to his role as chief executive officer have reached an impasse over the makeup and role of the board, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The decision to restore Altman’s role as CEO could come quickly, though talks are fluid and still ongoing. At midday Sunday, Altman and former President Greg Brockman were in the startup’s headquarters, according to people familiar with the matter. OpenAI leaders pushing for the board to resign and to reinstate Altman include Interim CEO Mira Murati, Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon and Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. foundering_tout Altman, who was fired Friday, is open to returning but wants to see governance changes — including the removal of existing board members, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private. After facing intense pressure following their decision to fire Altman Friday, the board agreed in principle to step down, but have so far refused to officially do so. The directors have been vetting candidates for new directors. At the center of the high-stakes negotiations between the executives, investors and the board is Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella. Nadella has been leading the charge on talks between the different factions, some of the people said. Microsoft is OpenAI’s biggest investor, with $13 billion invested in the company.
- concordDance 3y ago
- Iv 3y agoIn that case, Microsoft
- michpoch 3y agoMicrosoft own stake in the for-profit company. They do not have a stake in the non-profit. The for-profit is in majority owned by the non-profit org.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- theonlybutlet 3y agoAt its core this isn't a company though, and that's perhaps what was at issue.
- andrewstuart 3y agoI’d be surprised if Sam does. He’s free now to compete and defeat with a huge equity stake.
- mirzap 3y agoWe could be witnessing another Apple-Jobs moment. He could go and pursue other interests, but I have a feeling that he deeply cares about OpenAI. If that's the case, he will be back eventually, just as Jobs returned to Apple repeatedly.
- LightMachine 3y agoCompletely different situation. Jobs couldn't just fundraise for his new Oranges company, lure all the talent out of Apple and outcompete it at that point. Sam can do that to OpenAI in a blink if that's his plans.
- cthalupa 3y agoI'm kind of confused where the confidence comes from that Sam could somehow lure all of the talent out of OpenAI. One of the most important technical talents was apparently the key player in Sam's ouster to begin with, and we have no idea if these three people are leaving because they want to follow Sam or because they want to avoid the drama that is sure to follow, or how much of the rest of the talent feels even remotely like they do.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ksherlock 3y agoSteve Jobs did take a bunch of Apple employees with him to NeXT. All of them, no, but enough to build something better than what Apple had built.
- andomiz2 3y agoNo I don't think he really is free to compete. I think three letter agencies pulled the plug after his disturbing performance in Congress and attempt to strong arm the US government. It made me physically sick to watch.
- Iv 3y ago> and now they managed to shake up their user's trust in leadership stability Do users care about that? I care about features stability and avoidance of shitification. That's why I am usually preferring open models to depending on OpenAI's API. This drama has me curious about the outcome and if it leads to more openness from OpenAI, it may gain me back as a user.
- jawakar 3y ago> Do users care about that? I care about features stability and avoidance of shitification. Maybe not the individual users, but the enterprises/startups which builds around OpenAI.
- jawakar 3y agoThread about this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38316682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38316682
- dash2 3y agoThey're trying to get to AGI. I don't think keeping the current chatGPT feature stable is their primary goal.
- ModernMech 3y agoLeadership stability is feature stability and avoidance of shitification. Just look at Twitter, I mean X.
- blululu 3y agoWhen leadership takes on a gigantic amount of VC backed debt that must be paid back whether or not there was ever a business model that could justify the loans, then you get shitificaition.
- infamouscow 3y ago> Do users care about that? I care about features stability and avoidance of shitification. I pay for ChatGPT, and I care. What percentage of users, and how many in absolute numbers is a matter of debate, but this nonsense (and it is nonsense) is antithetical to building a strong trusting relationship with AI. At the very least it's as antithetical to their mission. If we take a step back, the benchmark now is to be actually transparent. Radically transparent. Like when Elon purchased Twitter and aired all the dirty laundry in the Twitter Files transparent. The cowards at OpenAI hiding behind lawyers advising them of lawsuits are just that, cowards. Leaders stand by their principles in the darkest of times, regardless of whatever highfalutin excuses one could hide behind. It's pathetic and embarrassing. A lawsuit at a heavily funded tech startup at this level is not even a speeding ticket in the grand scheme of things. 95%+ of tech startup wisdom from the last decade is completely irrelevant now. We're living in a new era. The idea people will forget this in a month doesn't hold for AI. It holds for food delivery apps, not AI tech the public believes (right or wrong) might be an existential threat to their prosperity and economic future. The degree of leadership buffoonery taking place at OpenAI is not acceptable and one must be genuinely stupid to defend it. Everyone involved should resign if they have any self-respect. My prognostication is the market will express it's displeasure in the coming weeks and months, setting the tone for everyone else going forward. How the hell is anyone supposed to trust OpenAI after this?
- concordDance 3y agoAre you forgetting its a nonprofit? How could the board be fired? What does their charter say is the mechanism for removing a board member?
- mirzap 3y agoYeah, I misspoke earlier. Although nobody has actual power on paper, public and investor pressure can be just as influential.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoCould Microsoft not hire Sam (reporting directly to Satya) and those who departed and equip them with compute access and ancillary resources? It seems less of a lift than salvaging the OpenAI situation internally due to the emotions and politics involved, non competes not existing in California (broadly speaking), and the logistics of attempting to apply pressure to a 501c3 board with very little leverage. The value is in the team, many who are now free agents. Parting ways with OpenAI might be the only option if the org remains firm on the direction it has chosen. Build internally to reach capability parity and then accelerate ahead of them while slowly rolling out of the agreement with OpenAI, reallocating those previously committed resources internally. “Due to the actions of OpenAI’s board, Microsoft had no choice but defend its investment in this revolutionary technology.” The pr wire writes itself.
- Kye 3y agoThere's already a Microsoft Sam.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LightMachine 3y agoEven if they could, why would Sam accept it? The smartest move for Sam is to just start his own for-profit company, easily raise a fuckton of money, hire all the talents from OpenAI and carry on with whatever he was doing. I think this is OpenAI's loss more than anything else. Now if the reason is truly a push against Sam's for-profit direction, I wonder if OpenAI will back it up by releasing their models to the public again. That would be world-changing, specially if the successor to GPT-4 is already trained.
- klohto 3y ago“Fired by whom, Ben? Fucking aquamen?”. The board did become un-boardable in any future company, but they are not resigning.
- ashu1461 3y agoWho can fire the board ? Who decides ?
- TheBigSalad 3y agoHow do you know that? What did the ceo do?
- egberts1 3y agoUmmm, most board members have some form of Microsoft connections, so for any hidden non-profit shareholders to fire any number of the board remains dubious, at best.
- dev_0 3y ago[dead]