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If needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- darknavi 3y ago> Know that if needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation Great if true.
- almost_usual 3y agoIf they’re replacing PPUs with RSUs it’s definitely great.
- outside1234 3y agoWhat is the usual PPU deal at OpenAI? What does that even mean / how is it valued?
- almost_usual 3y agoThere’s a good description here. https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html
- fallmonkey 3y agoThere’s an interesting dynamic here. What value of OpenAI to use for conversion calculation? 86b round is pretty much dead if they move to MS, yet 29b is too low (even 86b is low in terms of future potential). And what kind of upward room there will be? I have no doubt that MS can spend billions in cash or RSU to compensate all of them, but I do believe there’s some gotcha if exodus actually happens and MS might not be so generous in throwing millions of dollar cash for a general backend engineer recently joining OpenAI.
- cma 3y agoWasn't OpenAI created as a counter to big tech AI labs?
- sebzim4500 3y agoIt was created as a response to Google having exclusive access to the best models. If Microsoft lets anyone with an Azure account pay by the query to SOTA models then that would at least be an improvement
- intellectronica 3y agoMaybe the learning from this episode is that the limited liability for-profit company is the worst form of coordination except for all the others?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- est 3y agoironically, that's the mission of pre-Sam era.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoExcellent point. This is what I find so aggravating about the board's decision. Even if you buy everything that has been reported/speculated, that they were concerned about OpenAI being "too commercial" and Altman leading this commercial charge and being duplicitous in the process, all they've done is completely obliterated whatever part of the nonprofit's charter that still had influence. "AGI for the benefit of all humanity" will become yet another SV "how do we make the most money" ploy.
- mminer237 3y agoI don't see how the board did that. It would just be the employees leaving because they want more monetization and thence pay that spells doom for non-profit AI development.
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- jasode 3y ago>your desire potentially to join Sam Altman at Microsoft’s new AI Research Lab. Know that if needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation and advances our collective mission. The podcast This Week In Startups brought up an interesting point that many OpenAI employees are on corporate sponsored work visas and they really can't jump ship to Microsoft. Those visas are tied to OpenAI. Not sure how many employees it affects and of those, how many are "key people". (No doubt that Microsoft already understand the logistics of all this and still want to signal their open arms regardless.)
- alsodumb 3y agoMost work visas can be transferred to new companies fairly easily - it's almost trivial. I don't think thats a big deal.
- x86x87 3y agoTransfering? Yes, it's possible. But it's not trivial and, post trump immigration bs, there is a real possibility transfer will not go through. Also usually this takes a few weeks/months.
- bushido 3y agoI read something a few days on another unrelated thread from the AMA [0] with an immigration lawyer who works with YC companies that the administration prioritizing AI-related visas. Based on that, I could see folks making exceptions/expediting the process to stop brain-drain. Link: [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38207857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38207857 Edit - added link
- x86x87 3y agoYeah, that's fine and probably a bit easier to transfer, but it's still not a 100% sure thing and trivial to do.
- fernandotakai 3y ago
- outside1234 3y ago"The partnership remains strong" (As we hire all of your employees). This is going to be fascinating to watch. You have to think all of the usual players are going to offer everyone at OpenAI crazy salaries to break from Microsoft, if for nothing else to disrupt them from taking over OpenAI for free and to sow chaos and "deal doubt" amongst the remaining. It is what I would do if I were Facebook or Google at least. Meanwhile, at Microsoft, they had no raises this year because of "economic situations" or some such BS. So watching a bunch of folks get 2x raises doesn't sound like it is going to go down well. Not hard to imagine a lot of discontent with this from that angle as well.
- gardenhedge 3y agoWow, I wonder how MS employees are feeling right now
- siggen 3y agoI would think they feel great. Share price is going through the roof purely based on hype.
- gardenhedge 3y agoBut they've been told no pay rise and yet are taking on all of OpenAI's team with no interview process
- whatwhaaaaat 3y agoWe’re looking at different msft stocks then because msft is basically flat from 5 days ago.
- WrongAssumption 3y agoMicrosoft hit all time highs just on the possibility that they hire Altman. It almost certainly didn’t go even higher because it’s still not a sure thing. If it actually happens I think the market will value Microsoft even higher.
- beachwood23 3y agoSounds a little desperate now. MSFT should just give the employees space to make their own decision.
- jm4 3y agoI don't think so. These people are at a company that may not exist anymore next week. It's right around the holidays. It's a horrible time to have uncertainty about employment. I would assume most of them would find it reassuring that there's an opportunity for a seamless transition. Just because there's an open offer doesn't mean they have to go.
- outside1234 3y agoOr they can go and simultaneously bid themselves or whole teams to Google and Facebook. The option cost is zero to do this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 3y agoAnd having a solid open offer from Microsoft makes it much easier and less stressful to quickly get a great offer from somewhere else.
- nemo44x 3y agoSalesforce CEO did the same yesterday. We know twitter can run with a skelton-crew but I’m not sure OpenAI can survive a mass exodus of top AI talent. This is a very interesting sort of collective action but non-adversarial. Management is clamoring for labor and making public offers to people they haven’t met to pay top dollar.
- x86x87 3y agoTwitter does not run on a skeleton crew, it's spiraling out of control and into irrelevance.
- the-lazy-guy 3y agoYou are replying in a thread about a twit though.
- x86x87 3y agoThe point was thay even Twitter cannot do this, so there is absolutely no reason to expect openai to be able to pull it off.
- the-lazy-guy 3y agoMy point is that Twitter is not spiraling out of control into irrelevance, as demonstrated by you and me discussing a twit. And twitter is running relatively fine, as demonstrated by our ability to open pages on that website.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- x86x87 3y agoI disagree, but I guess time will tell.
- gsky 3y ago
- vinni2 3y agoThat’s an alternative hostile takeover brilliant!
- DebtDeflation 3y agoThey don't even need all 700+ or even 500 or even 100 employees to join. If they can get the 4 technical members of the executive team not counting Ilya - Mira, Woj, Bob, and Peter, plus a few other key people like Karpathy then they have what they need and OpenAI is effectively dead.
- outside1234 3y agoBut it is not in Microsoft's benefit that OpenAI is dead - they do not have the chops internally to compete yet (my take at least)
- DebtDeflation 3y agoI mean, hiring all 700+ of them would certainly mean OAI was dead, what is your point?
- lordnacho 3y agoMaybe there's a gap between "OpenAI is dead" and "MSFT can build the same"?
- vorticalbox 3y agoThey already can build the same given they have access to everything as part of their deal.
- jatins 3y agoIt's a great negotiation tactic from MS imo so that OpenAI employees don't budge on their petition knowing MS is backing them
- anon7725 3y agoOpenAI may be dead but OpenAI 2 at MS is not guaranteed to live. Building OpenAI at Microsoft from scratch is a tall order.
- yafbum 3y agoThe premise of founding OpenAI as a nonprofit with "nobler" goals than making money was that it would be a strong magnet to the right talent. Going to work for Microsoft (or any other tech company for that matter), from that point of view, is like crossing over to the dark side of the force. It will be interesting to see how many of OpenAI's employees were there because of its nonprofit status, and how many were there in spite of it.
- kolinko 3y ago700 out of 770 employees already signed an open letter saying they will consider changing jobs.
- fyokdrigd 3y agowhat this have to do with their willingness to join Microsoft?!? this only signals desire to leave openai. nothing else.
- mr_mitm 3y agoThis is a direct quote from the letter: >We , the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join. It does suggest more than their willingness to leave.
- fyokdrigd 3y agothanks. couldn't have guessed that from the comment alone. not like I'm following this fabricated soap opera very close
- phreeza 3y agoHow reliable is this information, could it be a deliberate rumor spread by interested parties?
- alexdoesstuff 3y agoPresumably, this violates MSFT's investment agreement with OpenAI. Any reasonably competent counsel would add "no-poach" protection for a strategic investor investing in a startup, and this is as clear a case of poaching as there is.
- sk55 3y agoIsn't no poach illegal?
- b800h 3y agoNot this sort, as far as I'm aware. The variety where you collude with competitors can be under some legal systems. The point is to discourage market distortion. Some jurisdictions also make employee contract conditions of a similar nature illegal too, as they interfere with personal freedoms. A lot of business deals though specifically include clauses to prevent one partner from poaching the other's staff, as otherwise one side could do what appears to be happening here: Unilaterally taking over the entire business.
- trashtester 3y agoThe current situation probably falls under Force Majeure, though. If most of these people go to Google or Amazon, Microsoft may not be able to deliver the products they depend(ed) on OpenAI for. Also, in most jurisdictions, no poaching agreements are unenforcable if the employees themselves initiate the transfer. Signing that letter about leaving if Sam is not coming back probably qualifies as a resignation notice. On top of this, most other AI leaders have already stated that they want OpenAI employees to come to them.
- alexdoesstuff 3y agoThis is quite literally the CTO of Microsoft saying: "Know that if needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation and advances our collective mission." I don't think there is a reasonable argument where this is not poaching. I have all the sympathy with OpenAI employees signing the letter and looking for new jobs. However, MSFT is basically doing a cheap de-facto acquisition of OpenAI, a company they have invested in. This sets a terrible precedent for companies taking investment from strategic investors where they may stage an opportunistic de-facto acquisition at the sign of any trouble.
- udev4096 3y agoCan you all please use nitter instead? It loads a lot faster and doesn't track you
- InCityDreams 3y agoSorry, neither nitter, twitter nor Xitter shall i read.
- udev4096 3y agoThis made me laugh for some reason
- udev4096 3y agohttps://nitter.net/kevin_scott/status/1726971608706031670 https://nitter.net/kevin_scott/status/1726971608706031670
- cantSpellSober 3y agohttps://archive.is/GcavN https://archive.is/GcavN
- gumballindie 3y agoI knew microsoft lacked ethics but this is beyond that. This is akin to a hostile takeover, simply because openai fired their inside man. Having said that - i hope they do move over. That’s where ai ends and becomes nothing more but clippy with sprinkles.
- crazygringo 3y agoFew people are going to want to move unless most people are moving. So there is a coordination and timing issue here. I really wonder if there's going to be a new letter from OpenAI employees about demanding the board reinstate Sam and Greg and then resign -- but this time with an actual deadline that the undersigned declare their mass resignation if not met. A genuine letter of conditional resignation. No more "may choose to resign" -- this time, "do resign if". Then everybody knows to move to Microsoft literally the next day, all at once. Given the holiday, it seems like midnight the end of this Sunday would be suitable.
- vkou 3y agoIt's interesting how some forms of employee collective action (collective bargaining) are frowned upon in this forum, whereas the sentiment surrounding this is largely positive. Another thing to chew on: Imagine if Googlers demanded that the board resign (which are the terms of Sam's reinstatement) or they all walk... I don't think they'd meet with nearly as much positive sentiment.
- squigz 3y ago> It's interesting how some forms of employee collective action (collective bargaining) are frowned upon in this forum, whereas the sentiment surrounding this is largely positive. Interesting, though sadly not very complex. The sentiment around this is so positive because they're backing up Altman, and he's garnered quite a cult lately.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ethanbond 3y agoFinally we figured out a way to support collective action: utilize it in support of a CEO!
- rightbyte 3y ago
- Vermyndax 3y agoWe'll see this again in discovery.
- manishsharan 3y agoMicrosoft bagged the Best Black Friday Deal ever ! Re-Brand ChatGPT as Clippy Reloaded!
- idlejitter 3y agoSpin it up as a separate company and do a $1T IPO.
- dist-epoch 3y agoIf the last three days didn't happen and Microsoft announced today that they are buying OpenAI there would have been massive uproar in the tech community against that, like when they bought GitHub. But now they are seen as saviors of humanity against the evil people who don't want to commercialize AI for maximum profit. Absolutely brilliant!
- DonHopkins 3y agoEnd-run around the anti-trust laws.
- chankstein38 3y agoGoing to be honest, I still hate them and all I feel is sadness that it feels like the employees of OpenAI are going to end up building microsoft products... I didn't love a lot about OpenAI but honestly I'd rather ChatGPT shut down than become a microsoft product. Though obviously it's naive to wish for that since that's obviously not how it'd go.
- rurban 3y agoI would rather wait until Ilja is gone, and then everything will be back to normal. This is much more likely than most joining MS; and I'd rather join Anthropic over MS.
- rickreynoldssf 3y agoThis seems to me like it's another nail in the coffin for Google. With Microsoft and its resources (essentially) fully in control of OpenAI tech without the non-profit chains, it can really turn everything upside down, kind of like what Google did to them in the 2000's. When was the last time you used Bard?
- foxandmouse 3y agoFunny enough, they seem to have adopted googles old playbook: Embrace, extend, and extinguish. On a sidenote, Pichai has been a terrible CEO, during his reign Google went from my favourite of the big tech to my least favourite.
- mattnewton 3y agoEmbrace extend extinguish was Microsoft’s “old playbook” according to the US Justice department (not Google’s). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extingu... The more things change the more things stay the same :D
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- leosanchez 3y ago> When was the last time you used Bard? Multiple times today. It's not that bad actually sometimes better than chatgpt 3.5 sometimes worse
- ccurrens 3y ago> When was the last time you used Bard? So far, every time I use bard it gives me an incorrect answer. But I am happy with how fast it returns it, at least. I haven't had that problem with Bing chat (at least in the past few months), which has pretty much changed the way I search. That being said, I hope Bard improves drastically. It would be nice to have more competition from them in this space.
- gardenhedge 3y agoTidbit: Kevin Scott has a podcast ("Behind the Tech") and he had Mira Murati as a guest in July. The podcast interview itself isn't very interesting though.
- mckirk 3y agoI don't really know why, but at this point whenever I read any new OpenAI news, Yakety Sax starts playing in my head.
- fluidcruft 3y agoI agree but this one is Microsoft news so it's Imperial March for me.
- selimthegrim 3y agohttps://lyricstranslate.com/en/mama-mi-vse-tyazhelo-bol’ny-мама-мы-все-тяжело-больны-mother-weve.html https://lyricstranslate.com/en/mama-mi-vse-tyazhelo-bol’ny-м...
- seydor 3y agoMsft has enough money to strongarm the law so they can somehow purchase openAi in the end
- itslennysfault 3y agoNot sure why they'd want to. If they can direct-hire the core talent they really don't need OpenAI at all, and if OpenAI totally goes under they don't have to make good on the billions in Azure credits they promised. win-win
- ramesh31 3y agoEmbrace, extend, extinguish.
- croes 3y ago>advances our collective mission. Microsoft's profit.
- bhpm 3y ago[dead]
- synergy20 3y agoit will be hard to match up though, before ousting Sam, those OpenAI-ers are expecting tens of millions or more from shares, once they join microsoft, that's pretty much unlikely, which is one reason people go to startups in silicon valley instead of big companies.
- zoogeny 3y agoI've already wasted a lot of my own time and energy on this, but I'm starting to get a bit confused on this whole thing. People seem pretty comfortable jumping to a profit-driven motivation for employees potentially leaving OpenAI in pursuit of some kind of loyalty to Altman. But I'm just thinking of the rancor that has been heaped on Terraform, for example, for changing its license. The argument always seems to be that Hashicorp mislead contributors by claiming to release their contributions as open source and now they've reneged on that deal. My understanding of OpenAI's mission was that there was a fear that AI being developed inside of big tech companies would provide undue advantage to the very few companies that were able to afford the teams and hardware necessary. Meanwhile the rest of us would be unaware of those advancement being made behind closed doors while those behemoths created an insurmountable gap. Yet now, for some reason, everyone is literally cheerleading the gutting of OpenAI and gleefully pushing the employees into one of the biggest and most notorious tech giants there ever was. You almost have to wonder, is this the greatest psychological twist in recent memory? People aren't just OK with them turning into a profit-seeking venture, they are seemingly begging for it. There is almost no opposition to it. And for what? Because of some guy none of us actually knows, who we've only seen on TV? And big tech guys like Paul Graham, Eric Schmidt, Satya Nadella - a literal who's-who of the tech giant oligarchy - are all fawning over this young man, along with visits to the white house, meeting foreign presidents, etc. We went from "big corps are bad" to "big corps are saviours" in less than a week. And I'm not even sure what we think they are saving us from.
- great_psy 3y agoThank you for the sobering perspective. I think we as a collective need to answer this question.
- jkeisling 3y ago“Open”AI already was an unaccountable big corp. They’ve already refused not only to open their weights but to publish most of their research, to create an insurmountable gap with the rest of the world, and to legislate it in with lobbying. “Openness” merely meant “the API is open to your money”, with opaque “content policies” we had no say in. They had the same unaccountable and opaque power and the same commercial drive, but “for our own good” as they define it unilaterally. Moving to MSFT merely means they’ll do the same thing, but with a bit more reliability, a bit more fear of liability, and a bit less of the doomerist sanctimony of the original leadership. Better to at least have a bigco with coherent and stable values like money. The bigco “nonprofit” led by the current board has made erratic decisions, has insane longtermist and EA values, and refused to give any meaningful statement about why they did what they did. Inasmuch as they resist commercialization, it’s to have more opacity and more control not less. How can we trust these people with control over AGI? Better to junk the board and deal with straightforward greed rather than hubris.
- gigel82 3y agoI wonder how Microsoft employees feel like now, after being paid the worst of all FAANG, no merit increases, tens of thousands of layoffs over the last year, they'll now be matching the outrageous comp packages for incoming OpenAI hires...
- koliber 3y ago... but you'll need to use Teams for collaboration.
- idlejitter 3y agoThis is a part of laying the groundwork for the very first $1T AI startup. A real unicorn.
- iteratethis 3y agoImagine how that feels for the tens of thousands of MS employees laid off recently. "Had to be done", according to 2.7T$ company. Followed by: "Hey guys, we don't know exactly what you do but do join us by the several hundreds and don't you worry about compensation, we pretty much have unlimited money to throw at this." And then they say people are too cynical of tech.
- NoPicklez 3y agoCompanies the size of Microsoft of which have 200,000+ employees can reshuffle and sack 5% of their workforce in order to provide capacity for future areas or allow them to be ready to make large investments in different areas. It is likely that Microsoft had staff working in areas that no longer required the attention they once did. I want people in jobs too and I am currently going through an unseen reshuffle that is through no fault of my own. But layoffs occur for all sorts of reasons, many of which are not to reduce further acquisitions or hires. If I was an employee who was laid off, I might justify it given that AI and those employees from OpenAI have become an acquirable gold mine all of a sudden.