4 ms·

If your beef with this structure is that executives get paid handsomely I have bad news about the entire category of nonprofits, regardless of whether they have

If your beef with this structure is that executives get paid handsomely I have bad news about the entire category of nonprofits, regardless of whether they have for-profit arms or not.

nerdponx 3y ago
I think they're making the same point as you: "nonprofit" is usually a scam to enrich executives anyway.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  The D Language Foundation is a non-profit. We formed it so that businesses could have a proper legal entity to donate to. The executives don't get any compensation.
- binonsense 3y ago
  [flagged]
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
I really wouldn't give a shit how much they were paid if we got something more than vague promises. They could release the source with a licence that restricted commercial use, anything they wanted, that still allowed them to profit. Instead we get "AI is too dangerous for anyone else to have." The whole thing doesn't inspire confidence.
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  >I really wouldn't give a shit how much they were paid if we got something more than vague promises. "We" got a free-as-in-beer general knowledge chat system leagues better than anything at the time, suitable for most low-impact general knowledge and creative work (easily operable by non-technical users), a ridiculously cheap api for it, and the papers detailing how to replicate it. The same SOTA with image generation, just hosted by Microsoft/Bing. Like, not to defend OpenAI, but if the goal was improving the state of general AI, they've done a hell of a lot - much of which your average tech-literate person would not have believed was even possible. Not single-handedly, obviously, but they were major contributors to almost all of the current SOTA. The only thing they haven't done is release the weights, and I feel like everything else they've done has been lost in the discussion, here.
  - kaoD 3y ago
    > The only thing they haven't done is release the weights. Not at all. With GPT-3 they only released a paper roughly describing it but in no way it allowed replication (and obviously no source code, nor the actual NN model, with or without weights). GPT-4 was even worse since they didn't even release a paper, just a "system card" that amounted to describing that its outputs were good.
  - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
    > "We" got a free-as-in-beer general knowledge chat system leagues better than anything at the time Where can I go get or drink from my free as in beer chat system from them then?
    - LordDragonfang 3y ago
      https://chat.openai.com/ https://chat.openai.com/ (No, having to create an account does not mean it's "not free")
      - remotefonts 3y ago
        I have to login? Sorry but that's not free, as they want my PII to be able to use it. Yes, I'm from the EU.
dasil003 3y ago
GP clearly understands this and said it explicitly, hence “OpenAI more subtle scam” part.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Isn't OpenAI a less subtle scam in that case?
  - j16sdiz 3y ago
    It's more. It give empty promise.
cobertos 3y ago
Not many people seem to understand this. Here's an example from a previous rabbit hole. The Sherman Fairchild Foundation (which manages the post-humous funds of the guy who made Fairchild Semiconductor) pays its president $500k+ and chairman about the same. https://beta.candid.org/profile/6906786?keyword=Sherman+fair https://beta.candid.org/profile/6906786?keyword=Sherman+fair... (Click Form 990 and select a form) I do love IRS Form 990 in this way. It sheds a lot of light into this.
- jdblair 3y ago
  That salary for managing $1B in assets doesn't seem high to me. Am I missing something?
  - smallnamespace 3y ago
    $1bn in assets isn’t much, at the high end you can charge maybe $20mm a year (hedge fund), at the low end a few million (public equity fund). That needs to pay not just execs but accountants, etc. Put another way, a $1bn hedge fund is considered a small boutique that typically only employs a handful of people.
    - tomp 3y ago
      Those $20m are literally to keep the lights on (base salary, law firm, prime brokers, data feeds, exchange connectivity). Nobody in the hedge fund world works for salary. They work for bonuses. Which for $1bn fund should be another $20m or so (20% profit share of 10% returns), otherwise you suck. If bonuses aren’t available in non-profits, the base salaries should be much higher.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    One cool thing is that the these funds don’t actually need active management and that in itself is a form of predatory graft. You could stick them all in a diverse array of index funds and call it a day, as pretty much no fund managers outperform those.
rvba 3y ago
The Mozilla management seems to be disinterested in doing anything to improve Firefox market share (by for example doing what users want: customization), they waste money on various "investments" and half-bake projects that are used by developers to stat-pad their CVs - and at the end of the day, they are paid millions. IMO you could cut the CEOs salary from 6 million to 300k and get a new CEO - and we probably wouldnt see any difference in Firefox results. Perhaps improvement even. Since the poorly paid CEO would try to demonstrate value - and this best is done by bringing back firefox market share.
- psychoslave 3y ago
  >300k [...] poorly paid The median annual wage in 2021 in the US was $45,760, https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-income/jobs-and-wages/median-annual-wage/ https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-income/job... Just to put bit of perspective...
  - rvba 3y ago
    300 thousand is a "poor" pay for a CEO Current CEO earns 20 times more -> 6 million per year
billywhizz 3y ago
the way openai structure their pay is dubious to say the least. maybe they will find a way to make money someday but rn everything they are doing is setting my alarm bells off. "In conversations with recruiters we’ve heard from some candidates that OpenAI is communicating that they don’t expect to turn a profit until they reach their mission of Artificial General Intelligence" https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html
mcint 3y ago
It has mattered in other cases, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care > In 2003 the Internal Revenue Service revoked VSP's tax exempt status citing exclusionary, members-only practices, and high compensation to executives.[3] Or later in the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care#Non-profit_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care#Non-profit_sta... > In 2005, a federal district judge in Sacramento, California found that VSP failed to prove that it was not organized for profit nor for the promotion of the greater social welfare, as is required of a 501(c)(4). Instead, the district court found, VSP operates much like a for-profit (with, for example, its executives getting bonuses tied to net income) and primarily for the benefit of its own member/subscribers, not for some greater social good and, thereafter, concluded it was not entitled to tax-exempt status under 501(c)(4).[16]

If your beef with this structure is that executives get paid handsomely I have bad news about the entire category of nonprofits, regardless of whether they have for-profit arms or not.

nerdponx 3y ago

I think they're making the same point as you: "nonprofit" is usually a scam to enrich executives anyway.

WalterBright 3y ago
The D Language Foundation is a non-profit. We formed it so that businesses could have a proper legal entity to donate to. The executives don't get any compensation.
binonsense 3y ago
[flagged]

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

I really wouldn't give a shit how much they were paid if we got something more than vague promises. They could release the source with a licence that restricted commercial use, anything they wanted, that still allowed them to profit. Instead we get "AI is too dangerous for anyone else to have." The whole thing doesn't inspire confidence.

LordDragonfang 3y ago
>I really wouldn't give a shit how much they were paid if we got something more than vague promises. "We" got a free-as-in-beer general knowledge chat system leagues better than anything at the time, suitable for most low-impact general knowledge and creative work (easily operable by non-technical users), a ridiculously cheap api for it, and the papers detailing how to replicate it. The same SOTA with image generation, just hosted by Microsoft/Bing. Like, not to defend OpenAI, but if the goal was improving the state of general AI, they've done a hell of a lot - much of which your average tech-literate person would not have believed was even possible. Not single-handedly, obviously, but they were major contributors to almost all of the current SOTA. The only thing they haven't done is release the weights, and I feel like everything else they've done has been lost in the discussion, here.
- kaoD 3y ago
  > The only thing they haven't done is release the weights. Not at all. With GPT-3 they only released a paper roughly describing it but in no way it allowed replication (and obviously no source code, nor the actual NN model, with or without weights). GPT-4 was even worse since they didn't even release a paper, just a "system card" that amounted to describing that its outputs were good.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  > "We" got a free-as-in-beer general knowledge chat system leagues better than anything at the time Where can I go get or drink from my free as in beer chat system from them then?
  - LordDragonfang 3y ago
    https://chat.openai.com/ https://chat.openai.com/ (No, having to create an account does not mean it's "not free")
    - remotefonts 3y ago
      I have to login? Sorry but that's not free, as they want my PII to be able to use it. Yes, I'm from the EU.

dasil003 3y ago

GP clearly understands this and said it explicitly, hence “OpenAI more subtle scam” part.

emodendroket 3y ago
Isn't OpenAI a less subtle scam in that case?
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  It's more. It give empty promise.

cobertos 3y ago

Not many people seem to understand this. Here's an example from a previous rabbit hole. The Sherman Fairchild Foundation (which manages the post-humous funds of the guy who made Fairchild Semiconductor) pays its president $500k+ and chairman about the same. https://beta.candid.org/profile/6906786?keyword=Sherman+fair https://beta.candid.org/profile/6906786?keyword=Sherman+fair... (Click Form 990 and select a form) I do love IRS Form 990 in this way. It sheds a lot of light into this.

jdblair 3y ago
That salary for managing $1B in assets doesn't seem high to me. Am I missing something?
- smallnamespace 3y ago
  $1bn in assets isn’t much, at the high end you can charge maybe $20mm a year (hedge fund), at the low end a few million (public equity fund). That needs to pay not just execs but accountants, etc. Put another way, a $1bn hedge fund is considered a small boutique that typically only employs a handful of people.
  - tomp 3y ago
    Those $20m are literally to keep the lights on (base salary, law firm, prime brokers, data feeds, exchange connectivity). Nobody in the hedge fund world works for salary. They work for bonuses. Which for $1bn fund should be another $20m or so (20% profit share of 10% returns), otherwise you suck. If bonuses aren’t available in non-profits, the base salaries should be much higher.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  One cool thing is that the these funds don’t actually need active management and that in itself is a form of predatory graft. You could stick them all in a diverse array of index funds and call it a day, as pretty much no fund managers outperform those.

rvba 3y ago

The Mozilla management seems to be disinterested in doing anything to improve Firefox market share (by for example doing what users want: customization), they waste money on various "investments" and half-bake projects that are used by developers to stat-pad their CVs - and at the end of the day, they are paid millions. IMO you could cut the CEOs salary from 6 million to 300k and get a new CEO - and we probably wouldnt see any difference in Firefox results. Perhaps improvement even. Since the poorly paid CEO would try to demonstrate value - and this best is done by bringing back firefox market share.

psychoslave 3y ago
>300k [...] poorly paid The median annual wage in 2021 in the US was $45,760, https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-income/jobs-and-wages/median-annual-wage/ https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-income/job... Just to put bit of perspective...
- rvba 3y ago
  300 thousand is a "poor" pay for a CEO Current CEO earns 20 times more -> 6 million per year

billywhizz 3y ago

the way openai structure their pay is dubious to say the least. maybe they will find a way to make money someday but rn everything they are doing is setting my alarm bells off. "In conversations with recruiters we’ve heard from some candidates that OpenAI is communicating that they don’t expect to turn a profit until they reach their mission of Artificial General Intelligence" https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html

mcint 3y ago

It has mattered in other cases, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care > In 2003 the Internal Revenue Service revoked VSP's tax exempt status citing exclusionary, members-only practices, and high compensation to executives.[3] Or later in the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care#Non-profit_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSP_Vision_Care#Non-profit_sta... > In 2005, a federal district judge in Sacramento, California found that VSP failed to prove that it was not organized for profit nor for the promotion of the greater social welfare, as is required of a 501(c)(4). Instead, the district court found, VSP operates much like a for-profit (with, for example, its executives getting bonuses tied to net income) and primarily for the benefit of its own member/subscribers, not for some greater social good and, thereafter, concluded it was not entitled to tax-exempt status under 501(c)(4).[16]