2 ms·
Haha I see you’ve never had a contract with Microsoft. They are hyper aggressive and full of explosive gotchas.
by tsunamifury 3y ago
Haha I see you’ve never had a contract with Microsoft. They are hyper aggressive and full of explosive gotchas.
- chatmasta 3y agoTo be fair, you wouldn't know they're hyper aggressive until they actually move to enforce part of the contract. Most of their "partners" probably never need to meet that side of their legal team. If I measured the "aggressiveness" of every contract based on the potential litigation of all its clauses, I'd never sign anything.
- tsunamifury 3y agoThey are pretty on the nose with explosive triggers. For example all windows license are free with office 10 year deal however if the deal is withdrawn all windows licenses are owned immediately upon cancellation. This is just the basic explosive stuff it gets worse from there.
- chatmasta 3y agoSure, but any clause of the contract that requires followup action to collect payment is hardly ever going to be enforced. It's only when you're partnering with them at the scale of OpenAI that you need to worry about details like that. And in regards to OpenAI, note that (according to TFA), Microsoft has barely distributed any of their committed "$10 billion" of investment. So they have real leverage when threatening to deploy their team of lawyers to quibble over the partnership contract. And I don't think that "undermines confidence" in Microsoft's contractual agreements, given that there are only two or three other companies that have ever partnered with Microsoft at this scale (Apple and Google come to mind).
- tsunamifury 3y agoIm agreeing with you.
- chatmasta 3y agoCare to sign a partnership agreement? I'll need you to personally indemnify against any defection to GP's side, of course - any subsequent comment in violation of these terms could be subject to arbitration and voiding of the partnership agreement.