4 ms·

> a deal like that is surely worth more than 10b A deal like that - if true - would also imply that they should have abruptly fired Sam years ago, before it go

> a deal like that is surely worth more than 10b A deal like that - if true - would also imply that they should have abruptly fired Sam years ago, before it got signed off (Of course Satya's comments can also be interpreted as rather more loosely implying they're perfectly capable of maintaining what they've licensed and hiring the expertise to build their own GPT5)

jacquesm 3y ago
But then OpenAI wouldn't be where it is today. So was it good or was it bad?
- vkou 3y ago
  Someone else would have probably signed a similar deal, without OpenAI giving Microsoft the incredible leverage of owning all the IP, and being able to offer your entire staff a 20% pay raise to jump ship. If Sam was responsible for that, he smuggled one hell of a trojan horse into OpenAI, and should have been fired a long time ago.
  - vendiddy 3y ago
    Which company could that have been and how would that have turned out any differently? It seems like OpenAI needed deep pockets and access to computing power to survive. That limits the potential companies they could have cut deals with.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      Aye, wasn't MS's main offer Azure credits? The compute resources that are required are massive, and if not MS then you're getting into bed with some other Big Corp, i.e. Amazon, Oracle, IBM, Google, etc.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    You deal with the devil at your peril. But this is still an own goal by the OpenAI board, before last Friday there were no circumstances that would have pitted the board against Microsoft and now there potentially are. Bad move.
  - mannerheim 3y ago
    > If Sam was responsible for that, he smuggled one hell of a trojan horse into OpenAI, and should have been fired a long time ago. What's the likelihood that he signed onto a $10 billion investment deal from Microsoft without approval from the board?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Zero. And if it was done without board approval then that would have been the moment to can him.
    - robocat 3y ago
      Sam might not have been candid with the board about the implications of the deal.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Then the board failed in their duty of oversight. Because they could have found this out regardless of Sam being candid or not, implications are the consequences of that which is written on the papers and those papers were presumably available for inspection by the board. Unless Altman changed the paperwork but that would be an entirely different level and based on the statements by the new CEO none of that was the case. It seemed to be mostly a reason made up by the board to make the firing look good.
      - mannerheim 3y ago
        Are you saying he asked them to approve a contract that the board never saw the terms of, and they agreed?
  - nprateem 3y ago
    This is a lot of jumping up and down over nothing. Think about it when the deal was on the table: 1) Take the money. If OpenAI fail, MS get the code. OK, who cares, OpenAI have gone bust. 2) Don't take the money, don't become successful unless they can find another partner with such a good fit (deep pockets and resources). It made sense to allow MS to have the code if OpenAI failed since they'd have had nothing to lose apart from whatever residual value they could sell their IP for (which they already were effectively doing for $10B, so fair enough). If this was a sticking point to secure a $10B investment, it made sense. OTOH if they granted the IP to MS not contingent on OpenAI failing, then that would have been sheer incompetence.
    - notahacker 3y ago
      Option 3: negotiate a deal with a corporate partner with terms that mean it's more lucrative for them to help you succeed rather than take steps to ensure you fail at the first sign of trouble seems like a better choice. Clearly the possibility of OpenAI failing is not independent from the behaviour of its corporate partner. And I'm not sure Microsoft's negotiation is quite bad faith enough or their interest in OpenAI low enough to have made the entire deal contingent on the "if/when we decide to move aggressively against your company so it collapses we get exclusive free in perpetuity access to everything you ever did and no more caps to the profits from them" clause. If it's in there, it's in there because they signed a bad deal rather than because it was the only possibility.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Who will do that after MS already has been given all but the keys to the kingdom, and with all of the results of your efforts almost automatically flowing to your competitor by way of the deal that precedes yours?
        notahacker 3y ago
        Its the original deal I'm saying shouldnt have been considered on "keys to the kingdom... if we should happen to unfortunately die" terms (I think my edit to make that clearer came after your post)
- notahacker 3y ago
  Investment would have been possible on terms which didn't mean that OpenAI failing was all upside for Microsoft. (I suspect the actual terms aren't quite that generous and MS would actually have to rebuild some stuff from scratch if OpenAI implodes, but Satya isn't bluffing about being confident they could and unconcerned if his hiring stunt causes the collapse) I guess if you believe OpenAI's original stated mission was ever more than a marketing pitch, there's a good argument that it's all been bad anyway (building and licensing extremely impressive tech for their corporate partners and a growing consumer base isn't obviously contributing to making the world a "safer from unfriendly AI" place)
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I believe it was a fig leaf all along and I believe that that fig leaf was abused for personal gain or to settle a score with disregards to the consequences. That's based on a long time in business, I can't recall the last time I saw someone blow up an 80 billion dollar company based on ethics alone.
- marricks 3y ago
  It seems like they had a lot of smart people doing smart things. I would hope it wanted to be open and non-profit so it didn't have to live by the "move fast and break things" mentality of all start ups.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That went out the window the day they made the deal with MS and that's precisely when they took off. With a few billion in your pocket you are able to execute faster and better on your vision than when you are doing it for glory and fame.
6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
It wouldn’t be the first time Altman orchestrated something sketchy like that: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_best_long_con_you_ever_pulled/cszwpgq/?context=99 https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the... That, plus accounts of him being deceptive/manipulative like this (e.g. https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/1726754277618491416 https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/172675427761849141...), plus being fired precisely for deception makes it pretty consistent.

jacquesm 3y ago

But then OpenAI wouldn't be where it is today. So was it good or was it bad?

vkou 3y ago
Someone else would have probably signed a similar deal, without OpenAI giving Microsoft the incredible leverage of owning all the IP, and being able to offer your entire staff a 20% pay raise to jump ship. If Sam was responsible for that, he smuggled one hell of a trojan horse into OpenAI, and should have been fired a long time ago.
- vendiddy 3y ago
  Which company could that have been and how would that have turned out any differently? It seems like OpenAI needed deep pockets and access to computing power to survive. That limits the potential companies they could have cut deals with.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Aye, wasn't MS's main offer Azure credits? The compute resources that are required are massive, and if not MS then you're getting into bed with some other Big Corp, i.e. Amazon, Oracle, IBM, Google, etc.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  You deal with the devil at your peril. But this is still an own goal by the OpenAI board, before last Friday there were no circumstances that would have pitted the board against Microsoft and now there potentially are. Bad move.
- mannerheim 3y ago
  > If Sam was responsible for that, he smuggled one hell of a trojan horse into OpenAI, and should have been fired a long time ago. What's the likelihood that he signed onto a $10 billion investment deal from Microsoft without approval from the board?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Zero. And if it was done without board approval then that would have been the moment to can him.
  - robocat 3y ago
    Sam might not have been candid with the board about the implications of the deal.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Then the board failed in their duty of oversight. Because they could have found this out regardless of Sam being candid or not, implications are the consequences of that which is written on the papers and those papers were presumably available for inspection by the board. Unless Altman changed the paperwork but that would be an entirely different level and based on the statements by the new CEO none of that was the case. It seemed to be mostly a reason made up by the board to make the firing look good.
    - mannerheim 3y ago
      Are you saying he asked them to approve a contract that the board never saw the terms of, and they agreed?
- nprateem 3y ago
  This is a lot of jumping up and down over nothing. Think about it when the deal was on the table: 1) Take the money. If OpenAI fail, MS get the code. OK, who cares, OpenAI have gone bust. 2) Don't take the money, don't become successful unless they can find another partner with such a good fit (deep pockets and resources). It made sense to allow MS to have the code if OpenAI failed since they'd have had nothing to lose apart from whatever residual value they could sell their IP for (which they already were effectively doing for $10B, so fair enough). If this was a sticking point to secure a $10B investment, it made sense. OTOH if they granted the IP to MS not contingent on OpenAI failing, then that would have been sheer incompetence.
  - notahacker 3y ago
    Option 3: negotiate a deal with a corporate partner with terms that mean it's more lucrative for them to help you succeed rather than take steps to ensure you fail at the first sign of trouble seems like a better choice. Clearly the possibility of OpenAI failing is not independent from the behaviour of its corporate partner. And I'm not sure Microsoft's negotiation is quite bad faith enough or their interest in OpenAI low enough to have made the entire deal contingent on the "if/when we decide to move aggressively against your company so it collapses we get exclusive free in perpetuity access to everything you ever did and no more caps to the profits from them" clause. If it's in there, it's in there because they signed a bad deal rather than because it was the only possibility.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Who will do that after MS already has been given all but the keys to the kingdom, and with all of the results of your efforts almost automatically flowing to your competitor by way of the deal that precedes yours?
      - notahacker 3y ago
        Its the original deal I'm saying shouldnt have been considered on "keys to the kingdom... if we should happen to unfortunately die" terms (I think my edit to make that clearer came after your post)
notahacker 3y ago
Investment would have been possible on terms which didn't mean that OpenAI failing was all upside for Microsoft. (I suspect the actual terms aren't quite that generous and MS would actually have to rebuild some stuff from scratch if OpenAI implodes, but Satya isn't bluffing about being confident they could and unconcerned if his hiring stunt causes the collapse) I guess if you believe OpenAI's original stated mission was ever more than a marketing pitch, there's a good argument that it's all been bad anyway (building and licensing extremely impressive tech for their corporate partners and a growing consumer base isn't obviously contributing to making the world a "safer from unfriendly AI" place)
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I believe it was a fig leaf all along and I believe that that fig leaf was abused for personal gain or to settle a score with disregards to the consequences. That's based on a long time in business, I can't recall the last time I saw someone blow up an 80 billion dollar company based on ethics alone.
marricks 3y ago
It seems like they had a lot of smart people doing smart things. I would hope it wanted to be open and non-profit so it didn't have to live by the "move fast and break things" mentality of all start ups.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  That went out the window the day they made the deal with MS and that's precisely when they took off. With a few billion in your pocket you are able to execute faster and better on your vision than when you are doing it for glory and fame.

6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago

It wouldn’t be the first time Altman orchestrated something sketchy like that: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_best_long_con_you_ever_pulled/cszwpgq/?context=99 https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the... That, plus accounts of him being deceptive/manipulative like this (e.g. https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/1726754277618491416 https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/172675427761849141...), plus being fired precisely for deception makes it pretty consistent.