4 ms·

He is one of the most well connected people in tech and probably responsible for all of their partnerships and fundraising success. His departure in this fashio

by m_ke 3y ago

He is one of the most well connected people in tech and probably responsible for all of their partnerships and fundraising success. His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. To top it off he'd probably raise a few billion and poach half of the team.

abracadaniel 3y ago
To the first point, they’re hugely well known at this point and could probably continue to raise money fine without him. But to your 2nd point, they wouldn’t be doing that in a vacuum. They’d be competing against him, and he could probably still out-raise them to do the poaching.
nicce 3y ago
> His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes that eventually OpenAI will turn to full-profit mode. It is pretty clear, that if board wants to run company for greater good, for-profit-only CEO must leave.
- Johnny555 3y ago
  If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, Regardless of who they fired, if the board is known to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about top executives without so much as a heads up to large investors, it's not clear that any investor will see them as being worth investment.
  - nicce 3y ago
    > Regardless of who they fired, if the board is known to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about top executives without so much as a heads up to large investors, it's not clear that any investor will see them as being worth investment. It is non-profit company, so investors should not be expecting too much increased returns for their investment other than the product and cooperation what this company provides. If firing the CEO has no significant negative impact for actual product quality or cooperation, it should not be in the intrestes of investors. Especially, if the argument for firing is revolved around profit/non-profit future of the company, if the expectations for the original investors was right (investing non-profit). In that case, it is not arbitrary or capricious decisions. But I would of course would like to see some transparency, since we don't really know what happened yet.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    > make arbitrary and capricious decisions You think they just acted on a whim? Why? Why is everybody assuming that the board just flipped out and did something insane? To me, the rational assumption is that the board - being composed of multiple people who seem fairly well-grounded, i.e. not terminally online twitter types - are acting rationally. That's supported by them acting professionally; releasing one single press release and then shutting the hell up, presumably on the advice of their lawyers.
    - Johnny555 3y ago
      >You think they just acted on a whim? Why? Because they fired him on Friday due to unspecified "lack of trust" issues and now, 2 days later, the new interim CEO is reportedly in talks to hire him back? Do you not see why this looks like they fired him on a whim?
      - 15457345234 3y ago
        > the new interim CEO is reportedly in talks to hire him back? Literally nobody unbiased is reporting this. This reporting is _all_ coming from 'their side.' You are inside the smoke and mirrors if you can't see that.
        Johnny555 3y ago
        Several days later and it's been continued to have been widely reported (backed up by Sam himself), and now this quote from Bloomberg today: new interim CEO Emmett Shear is involved in mediating these negotiations, creating the frankly unprecedented situation where (1) the interim CEO who replaced (2) the interim CEO who replaced Sam and who (3) got replaced for trying to get Sam back is now (4) deeply involved in a new effort to get Sam back Explain to me how this was a well thought out transition and not done on a whim? Even the new CEO who was put into place after the interim CEO is trying to get Altman back.
- John7149 3y ago
  He can poach away half the staff IMMEDIATELY. You cannot run a company with majority of your key personnels gone in a week. Then the remaining staff will be moving over within 3mths to a year. What OpenAI will be left in a year time will be back to square one, startup mode. Whatever tech they have now it will stay stagnant. Whatever tech Altman started in his new venture will be just slightly behind what OpenAI has. Within a year Altman will supercede it. He is that important. Think Steve Jobs to Apple but AI.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Those people have kids and mortgages and car payments. And are very well compensated. They aren’t gone by this time next week. Is there any precedent for that? Nobody does that. Yeah sure eventually he could poach people and it’s always possible that this is the beginning of a transition but there’s some seriously magical thinking going on here.
    - MrLeap 3y ago
      I have no reason to believe Sam Altman's a similar case, but have you heard of Nick Calandra? He was editor and chief of the escapist. Last week he got fired, the entire video department (~20 people) resigned and they immediately started a company together called Second Wind.
      - CPLX 3y ago
        Sure I’ll buy 20 employees walking. That’s plausible. OpenAI has 700 and they’re highly compensated. How would you even onboard and meet payroll in a week for a non existent entity if you suddenly had even half that number? Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting?
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        3y ago
- m_ke 3y ago
  I'm not sure how this would work with their funding / ownership structure but a delaware c corp with such a high valuation and so much money raised would have to take a huge down round if it lost half the team and pissed off their largest partners (microsoft). It would usually be a bloodbath that would wipe out common shareholders and early investors, which would then lead to most early employees leaving.

by m_ke 3y ago

abracadaniel 3y ago

To the first point, they’re hugely well known at this point and could probably continue to raise money fine without him. But to your 2nd point, they wouldn’t be doing that in a vacuum. They’d be competing against him, and he could probably still out-raise them to do the poaching.

nicce 3y ago

> His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes that eventually OpenAI will turn to full-profit mode. It is pretty clear, that if board wants to run company for greater good, for-profit-only CEO must leave.

Johnny555 3y ago
If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, Regardless of who they fired, if the board is known to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about top executives without so much as a heads up to large investors, it's not clear that any investor will see them as being worth investment.
- nicce 3y ago
  > Regardless of who they fired, if the board is known to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about top executives without so much as a heads up to large investors, it's not clear that any investor will see them as being worth investment. It is non-profit company, so investors should not be expecting too much increased returns for their investment other than the product and cooperation what this company provides. If firing the CEO has no significant negative impact for actual product quality or cooperation, it should not be in the intrestes of investors. Especially, if the argument for firing is revolved around profit/non-profit future of the company, if the expectations for the original investors was right (investing non-profit). In that case, it is not arbitrary or capricious decisions. But I would of course would like to see some transparency, since we don't really know what happened yet.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  > make arbitrary and capricious decisions You think they just acted on a whim? Why? Why is everybody assuming that the board just flipped out and did something insane? To me, the rational assumption is that the board - being composed of multiple people who seem fairly well-grounded, i.e. not terminally online twitter types - are acting rationally. That's supported by them acting professionally; releasing one single press release and then shutting the hell up, presumably on the advice of their lawyers.
  - Johnny555 3y ago
    >You think they just acted on a whim? Why? Because they fired him on Friday due to unspecified "lack of trust" issues and now, 2 days later, the new interim CEO is reportedly in talks to hire him back? Do you not see why this looks like they fired him on a whim?
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      > the new interim CEO is reportedly in talks to hire him back? Literally nobody unbiased is reporting this. This reporting is _all_ coming from 'their side.' You are inside the smoke and mirrors if you can't see that.
      - Johnny555 3y ago
        Several days later and it's been continued to have been widely reported (backed up by Sam himself), and now this quote from Bloomberg today: new interim CEO Emmett Shear is involved in mediating these negotiations, creating the frankly unprecedented situation where (1) the interim CEO who replaced (2) the interim CEO who replaced Sam and who (3) got replaced for trying to get Sam back is now (4) deeply involved in a new effort to get Sam back Explain to me how this was a well thought out transition and not done on a whim? Even the new CEO who was put into place after the interim CEO is trying to get Altman back.
John7149 3y ago
He can poach away half the staff IMMEDIATELY. You cannot run a company with majority of your key personnels gone in a week. Then the remaining staff will be moving over within 3mths to a year. What OpenAI will be left in a year time will be back to square one, startup mode. Whatever tech they have now it will stay stagnant. Whatever tech Altman started in his new venture will be just slightly behind what OpenAI has. Within a year Altman will supercede it. He is that important. Think Steve Jobs to Apple but AI.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Those people have kids and mortgages and car payments. And are very well compensated. They aren’t gone by this time next week. Is there any precedent for that? Nobody does that. Yeah sure eventually he could poach people and it’s always possible that this is the beginning of a transition but there’s some seriously magical thinking going on here.
  - MrLeap 3y ago
    I have no reason to believe Sam Altman's a similar case, but have you heard of Nick Calandra? He was editor and chief of the escapist. Last week he got fired, the entire video department (~20 people) resigned and they immediately started a company together called Second Wind.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      Sure I’ll buy 20 employees walking. That’s plausible. OpenAI has 700 and they’re highly compensated. How would you even onboard and meet payroll in a week for a non existent entity if you suddenly had even half that number? Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - 3y ago
m_ke 3y ago
I'm not sure how this would work with their funding / ownership structure but a delaware c corp with such a high valuation and so much money raised would have to take a huge down round if it lost half the team and pissed off their largest partners (microsoft). It would usually be a bloodbath that would wipe out common shareholders and early investors, which would then lead to most early employees leaving.