3 ms·

Not Microsoft? Otherwise people would've jumped ship long ago. None of this letter writing and PR campaign. The smaller OpenAI that signed the Microsoft agreem

Not Microsoft? Otherwise people would've jumped ship long ago. None of this letter writing and PR campaign. The smaller OpenAI that signed the Microsoft agreement had plenty of sustenance. Compute remains fungible unlike LLMs.

scarface_74 3y ago
There are only two other companies with the amount of compute available that OpenAI needs - AWS and GCP. And GCP is a non starter and a distant third in cloud. And if you think a migration at that scale is “easy” you haven’t been involved with mass migrations. Besides, Microsoft’s enterprise customers aren’t going to jump ship to another cloud provider and follow OpenAI. Before I was giving anecdotes from n-6 job working at a startup and my n-3 job when I was on the other side of the table as a vendor’s largest customer. This part of knowing how the cloud industry and migrations work comes from my n-1 job working in the Professional Services Department at AWS when I was involved with large migrations and saw how sticky enterprises were when it came to dealing with Microsoft. And what does OpenAI have to offer another company with Microsoft already having 49% equity?
- himaraya 3y ago
  First, I meant people would've already jumped ship to Microsoft en masse without bothering with the OpenAI board fiasco if Microsoft truly held all the cards. I suspect they do not. Second, I meant the OpenAI that signed the initial agreement with Microsoft years ago already had ample resources and funding. In those negotiations, OpenAI would have had little incentive to hand over all their IP regardless of the offer on hand.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    We are witnessing right now that most of OpenAIs employees are ready to jump ship now that Altman is leaving. The facts on the ground changed. Also, it’s standard in many contracts that you can’t actively poach a partner’s employees. That doesn’t mean that if the employees actively reach out to you, you can’t hire them. I saw that at AWS. If they had so much funding why were they willing to give up 49% of the company to Microsoft? Does that read like a company that could be picky?
    - himaraya 3y ago
      The fact that Sam and the employees have waged this PR campaign suggests the board still sits on something of value. I guess we'll see who flinches first. OpenAI gave up 49% equity because they thought Microsoft gave a fair valuation and terms, among other possible reasons. OpenAI wanted to scale up their LLM research so they signed the agreement. I don't think OpenAI negotiated from a position of weakness.

scarface_74 3y ago

There are only two other companies with the amount of compute available that OpenAI needs - AWS and GCP. And GCP is a non starter and a distant third in cloud. And if you think a migration at that scale is “easy” you haven’t been involved with mass migrations. Besides, Microsoft’s enterprise customers aren’t going to jump ship to another cloud provider and follow OpenAI. Before I was giving anecdotes from n-6 job working at a startup and my n-3 job when I was on the other side of the table as a vendor’s largest customer. This part of knowing how the cloud industry and migrations work comes from my n-1 job working in the Professional Services Department at AWS when I was involved with large migrations and saw how sticky enterprises were when it came to dealing with Microsoft. And what does OpenAI have to offer another company with Microsoft already having 49% equity?

himaraya 3y ago
First, I meant people would've already jumped ship to Microsoft en masse without bothering with the OpenAI board fiasco if Microsoft truly held all the cards. I suspect they do not. Second, I meant the OpenAI that signed the initial agreement with Microsoft years ago already had ample resources and funding. In those negotiations, OpenAI would have had little incentive to hand over all their IP regardless of the offer on hand.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  We are witnessing right now that most of OpenAIs employees are ready to jump ship now that Altman is leaving. The facts on the ground changed. Also, it’s standard in many contracts that you can’t actively poach a partner’s employees. That doesn’t mean that if the employees actively reach out to you, you can’t hire them. I saw that at AWS. If they had so much funding why were they willing to give up 49% of the company to Microsoft? Does that read like a company that could be picky?
  - himaraya 3y ago
    The fact that Sam and the employees have waged this PR campaign suggests the board still sits on something of value. I guess we'll see who flinches first. OpenAI gave up 49% equity because they thought Microsoft gave a fair valuation and terms, among other possible reasons. OpenAI wanted to scale up their LLM research so they signed the agreement. I don't think OpenAI negotiated from a position of weakness.