26 ms·
Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees
- 0x5f3759df-i 2y agobut sam said he was sorry in all lowercase so it must be okay
- 3abiton 2y agoHe's on the board of AI safety too. Now I feel protected.
- minimaxir 2y agoSemi off-topic, but the trend of AI influencers adopting the all-lowercase communication style in professional conversation has been very annoying. It makes them appear completely unserious. I recently received an job recruitment email for an AI role in all-lowercase and I was baffled how to interpret it.
- atonse 2y agoYou're so right, it's utterly distracting to read a statement written in all lower case. It looks like it was written in a sloppy way and nobody actually proofread it. I think Sergey Brin used to do the same thing (or maybe it was Larry Page). I remember reading that in some google court case emails and thinking, the show Silicon Valley wasn't even remotely exaggerating.
- dankwizard 2y agoyoure not worth moving my pinky to the shift key, and you think that missed apostrophe was a mistake? im busy running a billion dollar company i dont have time for this
- fragmede 2y agowho's using a hardware keyboard these days?
- danielmarkbruce 2y agoGive it a year, it will become very uncool as people realize only people not using AI to make their writing better would send syntactically or grammatically incorrect wording.
- jareklupinski 2y agobet
- dontupvoteme 2y agoThrow it at an LLM with the simple command "fix", highlight every character that has a delta and send it back to them. Add a grade in red at the top if you're feeling extra cheeky
- ra7 2y agoI don’t think it’s only AI influencers that do this. I’ve noticed people use lowercase as some sort of power move. Like they’re so busy and important they don’t care about conventions.
- fragmede 2y agoit's because the stupidphone's stupid keyboard capitalizes for you in the wrong places, and you have to take extra effort to fix it when they get it wrong, or you turn it off, and then get lazy about fixing it when you do need the capitalization.
- ra7 2y agoDoes it? When I start a message, the keyboard automatically capitalizes. It also does it when a sentence starts after a period. I rarely ever have to fix capitalization. (I typed this from my phone)
- HaZeust 2y agoI get incorrectly capitalized one in every 250 times the keyboard is used, I'd imagine.
- poszlem 2y agoI think you are correct. It's a status symbol at this point. It's the digital version of "inconspicuous consumption" [1]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/inconspicuous-consumption/306845/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/inconsp...
- elevatedastalt 2y agoNo, this is a status symbol because it's a signal that these people are above norms of conventional society. What's worse is that there's a ready line of journalists talking about how capital letters promote inequality or shit like that providing coverfire for them.
- IvyMike 2y agoFollowing convention and using standard capitalization rules makes things easier on the reader. Going to all-lowercase is harder on the reader, and thus is disrespectful of the reader. I will die on this hill.
- lobsterthief 2y agoTHIS IS WHY I PREFER TO COMMUNICATE ONLY IN CAPITAL LETTERS. IT REMOVES ANY AMBIGUITY AS TO WHETHER OR NOT I’M ANGRY SINCE THE READER CAN ASSUME I’M ALWAYS SCREAMING IN THEIR FACE. I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A NICE DAY.
- neglesaks 2y agoCaps Lock is Cruise Control for Cool, right? ;o)
- joquarky 2y agoI miss Usenet taglines
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cpeterso 2y agoI’ve worked with people who write in all lowercase, but I’ve never worked with someone who writes in ALL CAPS. How long could someone write in ALL CAPS before they get fired?
- whatshisface 2y agoYOUR JOB ADVERTISEMENT SPECIFIED VERY MANY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE STOP HOW DO I WORK THIS DIFFERENCE ENGINE STOP
- dmvdoug 2y agoI guffawed (briefly), with a diminishing chortle thereafter. Well played and cheerio.
- simondotau 2y agoWriting in all lowercase is an aesthetic akin to an executive wearing jeans and a T-shirt. It is supposed to impart an air of self-confidence, that you don’t need to signal your seriousness in order to be taken seriously. However such signalling is harder to pull off than it seems, and most who try do it poorly because they don’t realise that the casual aesthetic isn't just a lack of care. Steve Jobs famously eschewed the suit for jeans and mock turtleneck. But those weren’t really casual clothes, those mock turtlenecks were bespoke, tailored garments made by a revered Japanese fashion designer. That is a world apart from throwing on whatever brand of T-shirt happens to feel comfortable to the wearer.
- voganmother42 2y agoI think it is more like wearing two polo shirts…
- lucianbr 2y agoThey have no clue which signals work and which don't, they just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. Another "Sam" signaled his superiority by playing games during meetings with investors, and it seemed to work for him, until it didn't. Also, how much is there to customize in a turtleneck? Seems like the same signal as a very expensive suit, "I have a lot of money", nothing more.
- simondotau 2y agoUnless you are very fit and have a perfect body shape, a very well tailored shirt/turtleneck can look significantly more flattering than an off-the-rack item. It'll sit well when you're in a neutral pose and stretch or pull appropriately when you gesticulate. You correctly interpreted the point I was making — Steve Jobs treated his casual look as seriously as others treat an expensive tailored suit. And the result means he's still signalling importance and success, without also signalling conformity and "old world" corporate vibes.
- InfiniteVortex 2y agoIf I received a legitimate job recruitment email for an AI role in all-lowercase I would put in the spam folder lol. sam altman typing in all lowercase letters shouldn't influence people to do the same in semi-professional environments & situations. I think Altman is trying to appear as casual, friendly, and attract the zoomer market by typing in all lowercase, it's just my speculation and perhaps I'm over-reading into it.
- wayeq 2y agoi've been mostly using all lowercase for decades.. am i the asshole?
- internetter 2y agowhy?
- downloadram 2y agonot at all, its a stylistic preference for some but its also easier and faster. i've been typing lowercase on PC [faster] and mobile [preference] for as long as i can remember; only using capitalization and punctuation where it feels necessary and for emphasis ..and to the best of my knowledge no one i chat with thinks it's strange, and no one on any forum has said anything about it either. the hate in this thread is just directed at Sam and since he does this, also at this since i've always typed like this i've joked with my mother that if i ever send her a message with proper capitalization and punctuation, its a secret signal that i've been kidnapped!
- opdahl 2y agoCan you please explain to me how it is faster? You click shift and the character at the same time.
- 1123581321 2y agoSame. It’s something you learned if you did a lot of chat (irc, icq, battle.net etc.) before smartphones. It makes sense young people wouldn’t know it’d been a default, faster way to type.
- 01100011 2y agoright? as i said in my other comment, this has been a thing since at least the 80s when i got behind a keyboard. i don't normally do it anymore, but for this post i've gone sans-caps. kickin it old school. (yaimadork)
- Cadwhisker 2y agoIf I see a job application with spelling or grammar mistakes in it, then it's a huge red flag; it tells me that this person does not care about accuracy or they don't check their work very well. These are very important attributes to have in engineering. If you see it in a job advert, I'd assume the same for the people who are doing the hiring.
- harrison_clarke 2y agoi read an article about bauhaus typography in high school and mostly dropped capitalization since then (~2005) whether i use them or not is basically a function of how much i think there will be consequences for not using them. if i do use them without coercion, it's for Emphasis, or acronyms (like AI), or maybe sPoNgEbOb CaSe i'm not sure where AI CEOs, or younger generations picked it up. but the "only use capitals when coerced" part seems similar
- 01100011 2y agolowercase has been used by propeller heads and hackers since.. idk.. the 80s? some of us just liked it better that way.
- xawxaw 2y ago> I recently received an job recruitment email Yet you use "an" for a vowel that's miles away, so I don't like the way you type either.
- joquarky 2y agoPostmodernism is consuming everything
- atleastoptimal 2y agoit’s the same as the tech lax dresscode, super high salaries, benefits, overall relaxed “we can get away with it because we’re both high status and enlightened” that operates as a signal to their assumed superiority.
- tdeck 2y agoIt looks especially odd when the text contains other "formalities" like semicolons, or writing the phrase "full stop". Aside: "full stop" is the Commonwealth English way of saying "period" so it seems like an affectation to see an American using it.
- kurts_mustache 2y agoAnother day, another article where Vox is hating on OpenAI.
- mateus1 2y agoYou’re just shooting the messenger.
- mateus1 2y agoWhat surprises me about these stories surrounding openAI is how they apologize while lying and downplaying any blame. Do they expect anybody to believe they didn’t know about clawback clauses?
- refulgentis 2y agoIt's been stultifying the older I get to see how easy it is for people to lie to themselves and others, everywhere. You have to be really attuned to "is this actually rational or sound right, or am I adding in an implicit 'but we're good people, so,'"
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoRight. The big change is bad faith argument developing into unapologetic bad faith developing into weaponised bad faith. It accelerated rapidly with some trends like the Tea Party, Gamergate, Brexit, Andrew Wakefield, covid antivax, and the Ukraine situation, and is in evidence on both sides of the trans rights debate, in doxxing, in almost every single argument on X that goes past ten tweets, etc. It's something many on the left have generally identified as worse from the right wing or alt.right. But this is just because it's easier to categorise it when it's pointing at you. It's actually the primary toxicity of all argument in the 21st century. And the reason is that weaponised bad faith is addictive fun for the operator. Basically everyone gets to be Lee Atwater or Roger Stone for a bit, and everyone loves it.
- ants_everywhere 2y ago> It's something many on the left have generally identified as worse from the right wing or alt.right. It depends a bit by what you mean by left and right, but if you take something like Marxism that was always 100% a propaganda effort created by people who owned newspapers and the pervasiveness of propaganda has been a through line e.g. in the Soviet Union, agitprop etc. A big part of the Marxist theory is that there is no reality, that social experience completely determines everything, and that sort of ideology naturally lends itself to the belief that blankets of bad faith arguments for "good causes" are a positive good. This sort of thinking was unpopular on the left for many years, but it's become more hip no doubt thanks to countries like Russia and China trying to re-popularize communism in the West.
- tedivm 2y agoIf this really was a mistake the easiest way to deal with it would be to release people from their non disparagement agreements that were only signed by leaving employees under the duress of losing their vested equity. It's really easy to make people whole for this, so whether that happens or not is the difference between the apologies being real or just them just backpedaling because employees got upset. Edit: Looks like they're doing the right thing here: > Altman’s initial statement was criticized for doing too little to make things right for former employees, but in an emailed statement, OpenAI told me that “we are identifying and reaching out to former employees who signed a standard exit agreement to make it clear that OpenAI has not and will not cancel their vested equity and releases them from nondisparagement obligations” — which goes much further toward fixing their mistake.
- marcinzm 2y agoAssuming that’s the only clause that they can use to cause people trouble. The article indicates it’s not.
- polack 2y ago> ”we are identifying and reaching out to former employees who signed a standard exit agreement to make it clear that OpenAI has not and will not cancel their vested equity and releases them from nondisparagement obligations” Looks like they’re doing that.
- dragonwriter 2y agoWell, they say they are. But the nondisparagement agreement repeatedly forbids revealing the agreement itself, so if it wasn't cancelled those subject to it would be forbidden to point out that the public claim they were going to release people from it was a lie (or done only for people from whom OpenAI was not particularly concerned about potential disparagement.)
- lelandfe 2y agoIf your concern is in the validating that they've done so, the article author can at least vet with her anonymous sources.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tangentstar 2y agoNothing quite like a contract’s consideration consisting solely of a pre-existing obligation. I wonder what they were thinking with that?
- heavyset_go 2y ago> I wonder what they were thinking with that? "Fuck you, poors."
- jobs_throwaway 2y agoI bet similar claw-back clauses are waaay more common than many on this thread would imagine at private co's. I've always been under the impression that 'vested equity' doesn't mean ~anything until you actually see liquidity. The company can generally fuck you before that point if they choose to. Hope I'm being overly cynical with this take.
- NotSammyHagar 2y agoIt sure means a lot more after liquidity, but big successful companies like spacex do have a market selling pre-ipo options or shares or whatever.
- aledalgrande 2y agoThey don't need clawback. They can just dilute the f out of you. Which is what happens most of the time anyways
- solidasparagus 2y agoI have never seen it in quite a few equity agreements I've looked at. What is common is a very short post-termination exercise window that in practice acts as a clawback unless you are financially able and willing to pay the cost/taxes of exercising within (often) 90 days. And a bunch of not-well-informed employees who didn't understand the consequences of this clause when they originally signed
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tsunamifury 2y agoWhy had the advent of semi-intelligent agents suddenly turned Silicon Valley into a place that now hates its own workers. Why is it that a place that once believed the mutual benefit of an intelligent worker and a company has turned into a time to brutalize or even hate the very creators of this technology Where is all this hatred coming from?
- sumeno 2y agoIt always hated its workers, it just didn't think it had other options for a long time.
- tsunamifury 2y agoDid it hate the market dynamics. i.e. Peter theils thesis that competition is for losers because it drives up prices... therefore the shortage of talent was creating competition which should be hated?
- mturmon 2y agoSince the beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight#Frictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight#Frictions
- tsunamifury 2y agoThen notion here is that the ownership class hates that it cannot own the creators of work. And now a new class if intelligence exists that can be fully owned. This is dark.
- reaperman 2y agoSeems to pre-date semi-intelligent AI agents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
- tsunamifury 2y ago
- svaha1728 2y ago[flagged]
- dontupvoteme 2y agoIt's really maddening just how right the board was.
- hehdhdjehehegwv 2y agoThe majority of employees didn’t care about a lying CEO or alignment research: they wanted the stock payoffs and Sam was the person offering it - end of the day that’s what happened with the coup. Now Sam is seen as fucking with said stock, so maybe that isn’t panning out. Amazing surprise.
- lucianbr 2y agoIt's funny to me to read now about employees of OpenAI being coerced or tricked or whatever. Didn't they threaten to resign en masse a few months ago, in total unquestioned support of Sam Altman? They pretty much walked into it, in my opinion. That's not saying anything OpenAI or Altman do is excusable, no way. I just feel like there's almost no good guys in this story.
- dehrmann 2y agoWhile true, it doesn't mean they were offering a better alternative.
- Barrin92 2y agoWell appropriately enough it was an AI movie that taught as a valuable lesson, namely that sometimes the only correct move is not to play. It's such an insidious idea that we ought to accept that you can just give up your promises you explicitly made once those rules get into your way of doing exactly what they were supposed to prevent. That's not anyone else's problem, that was the point! The people that can't do that are supposed to align AI? They can't align themselves
- _heimdall 2y agoI wish more people didn't expect an alternative before getting rid if a bad situation. Sometimes subtraction, rather than replacement, is still the right answer.
- idkdotcom 2y ago[dead]
- skepticATX 2y agoI don’t believe in the AGI claims, or in X-Risk. But I do think it’s apparent that AI will only become more powerful and ubiquitous. Very concerning that someone like Sam, with a history of dishonesty and narcissism that is only becoming more obvious time, may stand to control a large chunk of this technology. He can’t be trusted, and as a result OpenAI cannot be trusted.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- surfingdino 2y agoIt's for the good of humanity... that part of humanity that may not want bad PR.
- dmitrygr 2y agoGoing to be hard to keep claiming you didn’t know something, if your signature is on it. I don’t really think a CEO gets to say he didn’t read what he was signing.
- dexwiz 2y agoThere is another very famous leader on trial for exactly that right now.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoThis really is OpenAI's Downing Street Christmas Party week isn't it.
- ramesh31 2y agoThey could have been cool. They could have been 2001 Google. They could have been the number one place any new PhD wanted to work. But no. The MBAs saw dollar signs, and everything went out the window. They fumbled the early mover advantage, and will be hollowed out by the competition and commodified by the PaaS giants. What a shame.
- nicklecompte 2y agoInstead of taking 15 years to drop the "don't be evil" act like Google, the new AI companies did it in two! e/acc, baby!
- Always42 2y agowhat does e/acc mean?
- heavyset_go 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_accelerationism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_accelerationism
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoSheldon Cooper can afford a nicer apartment.
- dcreater 2y agoThe sad thing is that this isn't even MBAs. The Bay area has gotten so infested with the hustlers and win-at-all-costs, winner-takes-all YC mantra tech bros that it seems even a high minded company like OpenAI isn't immune
- timmg 2y agoIt’s not just the MBAs that saw dollar signs. A lot of the engineers and researchers did, too.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
- neglesaks 2y agoI'll make a prediction here: OpenAI will in the coming years turn out just as ruthless and socially damaging as Facebook did.
- ramesh31 2y ago>OpenAI will in the coming years turn out just as ruthless and socially damaging as Facebook did. They wish. Napster is a more apt analogy.
- tomcam 2y agoLess of a prediction and more of a descriptor of its current state
- neglesaks 2y agoYou ain't seen nothin' yet...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- elevatedastalt 2y agoI know shitting on FB is de rigueur. But honestly Facebook at its peak was really very useful in many ways that OpenAI hasn't ever been.
- webdoodle 2y agoDon't forget about Reddit and Twitter. Although they like to call themselves social networks, they are really corporate psyop networks for hire.
- neglesaks 2y agoWell put. I agree.
- web3-is-a-scam 2y agoIn the coming years? It pretty much already is
- tomcam 2y agoFrom Sam Altman: > this is on me and one of the few times i've been genuinely embarrassed running openai; i did not know this was happening and i should have. Bullshit. Presumably Sam Altman has 20 IQ points on me. He obviously knows better. I was a CEO for 25 years and no contract was issued without my knowing every element in it. In fact, I had them all written by lawyers in plain English, resorting to all caps and legal boilerplate only when it was deemed necessary. For every house, business, or other major asset I sold if there were 1 or more legal documents associated with the transaction I read them all, every time. When I go to the doctor and they have a privacy or HIPAA form, I read those too. Everything the kids' schools sent to me for signing--read those as well. He lies. And if he doesn't... then he is being libeled right and left by his sister. https://twitter.com/anniealtman108 https://twitter.com/anniealtman108
- devbent 2y ago> Presumably Sam Altman has 20 IQ points on me. I've read your posts for years on HN, don't undersell yourself. Many CEOs don't know what is their company's contracts, nor do they think about it. While it is laudable that you paid such close attention, the fact is I've met many leaders who have no clue what is in their company's employment paperwork.
- cawlfy 2y agoWhile I agree that there's probably a varying degree of attention paid... I think that this clause is so non-standard for tech that it almost certainly got flagged or was explicitly discussed before being added that claiming that he didn't know it was there strains credulity badly.
- devbent 2y agoI just talked to a neighbor, he said his startup has the exact same clause in their employment contracts! Huh I should read mine.
- jay-barronville 2y ago> He lies. And if he doesn't... then he is being libeled right and left by his sister. > > https://twitter.com/anniealtman108 https://twitter.com/anniealtman108 You know, it’s always heartbreaking to me seeing family issues spill out in public, especially on the internet. If the things Sam’s sister says about him are all true, then he’s, at the very minimum, an awful brother, but honestly, a lot of it comes across as a bitter or jealous sibling…really sad though.
- istjohn 2y agoI wonder if this HN post will get torpedoed as fast as the one from yesterday[0]. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435440
- user_7832 2y agoI really wish there was some simple calculations that could be shown on how posts are ranked. For eg post A has x upvotes, y comments, is z minutes old and therefore rank 2. Post B has these values, while C is here. Hence this post went down the front page quickly. It's not that I don't trust the mods explicitly, it's just that showing such numbers (if they exist) would be helpful for transparency.
- casefields 2y agoPeople always interested and fascinated by the algorithm whenever it comes up. Dang makes the (correct) assertion that people will much more easily game it if they know the intricacies. PG always churlishly jumps in to say there’s nothing interesting about it and any discussion of it is boring. Pretty asinine response but I work in Hollywood and each studio lot has public tours giving anyone that wants a glimpse behind the curtain. On my shows, we’ve even allowed those people to get off the studio golf cart to peek inside at our active set. Even answering questions they have about what they see which sometimes explains Hollywood trickery. I’m sure there’s tons of young programmers that would love to see and understand how such a long-lasting great community like this one persists.
- serf 2y agowait long enough and the other product will be able to expose the secrets. future gpt prompt : "Take 200000 random comments and threads from hacker news, look at how they rank over time and make assumptions about how the moderation staff may be affecting what you consume. Precisely consider the threads or comments which have risque topics regarding politics or society or projects that are closely related to Hacker News moderation staff or Y Combinator affiliates."
- 2y ago
- ein0p 2y agoProtip: you can’t negotiate terms after you agree to them.
- solidasparagus 2y agoYou absolutely can, you just better have the leverage necessary
- rrr_oh_man 2y agoYou’d be surprised
- adt 2y agoPDF: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24679729/aestas_reduced.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24679729/aestas_reduc...
- souvenir 2y agoSo disappointing of OpenAI. I hope they'll make things right with all their former employees.
- Havoc 2y agoI find it hard to believe that Sam didn’t know about something that draconian in something so sensitive as NDAs that affects to equity. He’s not exactly new to this whole startup thing and getting equity right is not a small part of that
- WiSaGaN 2y agoHe was obviously lying, and he probably also knew people would not believe it. I just don't know why he still chose to do it.
- mirekrusin 2y agoHe's not candid.
- Lionga 2y ago[flagged]
- gdiamos 2y agoFounders/CEOs don't lose track of equity or contracts around it. Every 1/10 of a percent is tracked and debated with investors.
- JCM9 2y agoThere’s a recurring pattern here of OpenAI getting caught red handed doing bad things and then being all like “Oh it was just a misunderstanding, nothing more, we’ll get on to fixing that ASAP… nothing to see here…” It’s becoming too much to just be honest oversights.
- throwaway115 2y agoIt doesn't matter because they hold all of the cards. It's the nature of power: you can get away with things that you normally couldn't. If you really want OpenAI to behave, you'll support their competitors and/or open source initiatives.
- benreesman 2y agoBut their product isn’t really differentiated anymore and has really low switching costs: Opus is better at almost anything than the 4-series (training on MMLU isn’t a capability increase), Mistral is competitive and vastly more operator-aligned, both are cheaper and non-scandal plagued. Mistral even has Azure distribution. FAIR is flat open-sourcing competitive models and has a more persuasive high-level representation learning agenda. What cards? Brand recognition?
- doubloon 2y agoalready cancelled my OpenAI account and installed llama3 on my local machine, and have a paid Copilot membership
- a_wild_dandan 2y agoSeems this Altman fella isn't being consistently candid with us.
- StargazyPi 2y agoYeah, not radiating "consistent candidness" is he?
- rachofsunshine 2y agoIt's the correct counter-strategy to people who believe that you shouldn't attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity (and who don't update that prior for their history with a particular actor). And it works in part because things often are accidents - enough to give plausible deniability and room to interpret things favorably if you want to. I've seen this from the inside. Here are two HN threads about times my previous company was exposing (or was planning to expose) data users didn't want us to: [1] [2] Without reading our responses in the comments, can you tell which one was deliberate and which one wasn't? It's not easy to tell with the information you have available from the outside. The comments and eventual resolutions might tell you, but the initial apparent act won't. (For the record, [1] was deliberate and [2] was not.) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31769601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31769601
- thereal_tron 2y agoDoes someone know why the employees wanted him back so badly? Must be very few employees actually upset with him and his way of doing things.
- keyle 2y agoThey want to get rich. They believe it will lead them to it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- eschaton 2y agoI recall that only some wanted him back, and the split was product/research—the “let’s get rich!” types wanted him back, the “let’s do AI!” types adamantly didn’t.
- ssnistfajen 2y agoIf Sam didn't get hired back after the firing, there was a good chance OpenAI would implode and that would be bad news for employee equity. Plus, the board didn't give out any information that could've convinced anyone to side with them. The drama about exit documents and superalignment research appears to have been contained in relatively small circles and did not circulate company-wide until they became public.
- falalalalalala 2y ago[dead]
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoEveryone is out for Sam Altman, and there are reasons to scrutinize him. But on this issue - it is common for a company's Legal and HR teams to make decisions on language in docs like these (exit docs) entirely on their own. So it is plausible that Sam Altman had no idea that this aggressive language existed. One reason to think the same thing is true here, is I recall Sam spoke up for employee friendly equity plans when he was running YC.
- jhatemyjob 2y agoPlus there's a million ways you can get screwed out of your equity
- thereal_tron 2y agoImagine if these people, obviously narrow-minded and greedy, gain access to AGI. It really would be a thread to mankind.
- davidQ123 2y agoIt's better to check whether it's true
- rehitman 2y agoThe company that fails in even a simple good faith gesture in their employee aggreement, claims it is the only one who can handle AGI while government creating regulation to lock out open source.
- sschueller 2y agoA company that was honest wouldn't lobby the government to lock out others.
- tptacek 2y agoI'm not following this very closely, but agreements that block employees from selling (private) vested equity are a market term, not something uniquely aggressive OpenAI does. The Vox article calls this "just as important" as the clawback terms, but, obviously, no.
- comp_throw7 2y ago> agreements that block employees from selling (private) vested equity are a market term They threatened to block the employee who pushed back on the non-disparagement from participating in tender offers, while allowing other employees to sell their equity (which is what the tender offers are for). This is not a "market term".
- tptacek 2y agoSure. Selectively preventing sales isn't. But it's not uncommon to have blanket prohibitions. You're right, though.
- comp_throw7 2y agoYeah, my impression is that a lot of non-public startups have "secondary market transactions allowed with board approval" clauses, but many of them just default-deny those requests and never have coordinated tender offers pre-IPO.
- jiggawatts 2y agoI've learned to interpret anything Sam Altman says as-if an Aes Sedai said it. That is: every word is true, but leads the listener to making false assumptions. Even if in this specific instance he means well, it's still quite entertaining to interpret his statements this way: "we have never clawed back anyone's vested equity" => But we can and will, if we decide to. "nor will we do that if people do not sign a separation agreement" => But we made everyone sign the separation agreement. "vested equity is vested equity, full stop." => Our employees don't have vested equity, they have something else we tricked them into. "there was a provision about potential equity cancellation in our previous exit docs;" => And also in our current docs. "although we never clawed anything back" => Not yet, anyway. "the team was already in the process of fixing the standard exit paperwork over the past month or so." => By "fixing", I don't mean removing the non-disparagement clause, I mean make it ironclad while making the language less controversial and harder to argue with. "if any former employee who signed one of those old agreements is worried about it, they can contact me and we'll fix that too." => We'll fix the employee, not the problem. "very sorry about this." => Very sorry we got caught.
- dataflow 2y ago> We're removing nondisparagement clauses from our standard departure paperwork How would you interpret this part? > and we're releasing former employees from existing nondisparagement obligations unless the nondisparagement provision was mutual. This is interesting - was it mutual for most people?
- jiggawatts 2y ago> We're removing nondisparagement clauses from our standard departure paperwork "We're replacing them with even more draconian terms that are not technically nondisparagement clauses" > and we're releasing former employees from existing nondisparagement obligations unless the nondisparagement provision was mutual. "We offered some employees $1 in exchange for signing up to the nondisparagement clause, which technically makes it a binding contract because there was an exchange of value."
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoWhat is up with the allegations of Annie Altman? Something doesn't smell right
- newnwme 2y agoWell, it is wrong to disparage someone that is innocent until proven otherwise. Even if you disagree with them and think they are a snake-oil salesman. That does not mean you should not hear someone out. As far as I am aware Annie said Sam and their brother molested her as a kid. He claims otherwise, and deflects with “she is a drug addict” (heavily paraphrasing here). Lots of talk of how her trust was broken, and it is impossible to get justice against someone so rich and powerful, etc. where sama’s camp claim it is a money grab and there is zero proof. A sticky wicket. Now, whether all these “new” revelations (honestly never thought Sam was honest) help support her claims is up to you. Just wanted to add some context for those unaware. Not accusing anyone.
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoThose are shocking allegations, real question is why Sam, as a wealthy man, isn't able to support his family?
- Uptrenda 2y agoNot gonna lie, I think its shady as fuck that a new account registers to post this one comment...
- frednoodle 2y agoAI-native companies seem to bring a new form of working culture. It could be different from tech industries environment.
- aagha 2y agoI don't understand whenever you read about something like this, why the head of HR at a company like this (just google (head of people|hr|"human resources" openai linkedin) and see the first result) doesn't end up on a public blacklist of bad actors who are knowingly aggressive toward employees!
- ssklash 2y agoWhy anyone trusts Altman or OpenAI with something as societally consequential as AI is beyond me.
- Fomite 2y agoI've reached the point where I wouldn't trust Altman with anything more consequential than a lemonade stand.
- jojobas 2y agoThe thing is, he didn't ask you. He put himself into a position where anyone not giving him money would feel they're missing out. It's very unfortunate that he managed to pull it off.
- _heimdall 2y agoWell that's the problem, isn't it? The incentives align with trusting Altman to make a return on your investment, nothing more. Investors don't really care about consequences that don't hit the bottom line prior to an exit. Consumers are largely driven by hype. Throw a shiny object out there and induce FOMO, you'll get customers. What we don't have are incentives for companies to give a damn. While that can easily lead to a call for even more government powers and regulation, in my opinion we won't get anywhere until we have an educated populous. If the average person either (a) understood the potential risks of actual AI or (b) knew that they didn't understand the risks we wouldn't have nearly as much money being pumped into the industry.
- ergocoder 2y agoSam is in a tough position. OpenAI is worth 100B. At this level, a founder would have been worth $20B at least. But Sam aren't getting any of that net worth but he gets all the bad reps that comes with running a 100B company.
- akaru 2y ago[ croc tears ]
- almog 2y agoUnfortunately it is unlikely to result in Altman's dismissal but imagine being fired from the same company, twice, in less than 12 months.
- Uptrenda 2y agoHN hates cryptocurrencies but 'equity' to me is even worse than the worst shitcoins. It's an IOU that the company controls (and one people think is a tangle part of their 'compensation.') Just imagine if a company thinks you're about to jump ship and you have equity close to being vested. The company almost has a perverse incentive to fire you to nullify that equity. This gets much much worse when you know the typical vesting schedules that startups like to use. I know some of you working at the top companies might get your equity vested every month. But in my experience its much more common to be talking about yearly vesting schedules at startups where you have to stay for many years to get anything. So think about that. They offer you an average to low base salary but sweeten the deal with some 'equity' saying that it gives you a stake in the company. Neglecting to mention of course, how many different ways equity can be invalidated; How a year in tech is basically a life time; And how the whole thing is kind of structured to prevent autonomy as an employee. Often founders will use these kind of offers to gauge 'interest' because surely the people who are willing to take an offer that's backed more by magic bean equity money (over real money) are truly the ones most dedicated to the companies mission. So not being grateful for such amazing offers would be taken as a sign of offence by most founders (who would prefer to pay in hopes and dreams if they could.) Now... with a shitcoin... even though the price may tank to zero you'll at least end up with a goofy item you own at the end of the day. Equity... not so much.
- senderista 2y agowe're deeply sorry we got caught, we need to do better. i take full responsibility for this mistake, i should have ensured all incriminating documents were destroyed. ps "responsibility" means "zero consequences"
- GianFabien 2y agoEquity in a unlisted, non-public company is an IOU scribbled onto a piece of loo paper.
- blast 2y agoI'd pay to get me one of them particular IOUs.
- outside1234 2y agoScam Altman strikes again. And if you don’t believe he knew about this, then you are the fool.
- ambicapter 2y ago> “The team did catch this ~month ago. The fact that it went this long before the catch is on me.” I love this bullshit sentence formulation that claims to both have known this already--as in, don't worry we're ALREADY on the case--and they're simultaneously embarrassed that they "just" caught it--a.k.a. "wow, we JUST heard about this, how outRAGEOUS".
- zniturah 2y agoLooking forward for a document leak about openai using YouTube data for training their models. When asked if they use it, Murali (CTO) told she doesn't know which makes you believe that for 99% they are using it.
- optimalsolver 2y ago*Murati
- Dr_Birdbrain 2y agoI would say 100%, simply because there is no other reasonable source of video data
- iLoveOncall 2y agoI use multiple websites that have hundreds of thousands of free stock videos that are much easier to label than YouTube videos.
- _diyar 2y agoNumber of videos are less relevant than the total duration of high-quality videos (quality can be approximated on YouTube with metrics such as view and subscriber count). Also, while YouTube videos are not labelled directly, you can extract signal from the title, the captions, and perhaps even the comments. Lastly, many sources online use YouTube to host videos and embed them on their pages, which probably contains more text data that can be used as labels.
- pompino 2y agoI am surprised to see a pro-copyright take on HN :)
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoTo be fair I don’t think Google deserves exclusive rights to contents created by others, just because they own a monopolistic video platform. However I do think it should be the content owner’s right to decide if anyone, including Google, gets to use their content for AI.
- naveen99 2y agoAre there more than 2 former openai employees ?
- manlobster 2y agoDo OpenAI employees actually get equity in the company (e.g. options or RSUs)? I was under the impression that the company awards "profit units" of some kind, and that many employees aren't sure how they work.
- whymauri 2y agoHere's an explanation: https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html
- CRConrad 2y ago> Although primarily known for ChatGPT, OpenAI has had a long history since its founding in 2015. No, "since 2015" is by definition not "a long history". For a long history, try the principality of San Marino, or (if you want a company) Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags AB. Or one of the Japanese temple-builder family companies. 2015 "a long history" -- wasn't that when I last took a dump?
- notachatbot1234 2y ago> many employees aren't sure how they work. Why aren't they simply asking their product?
- af3d 2y agoIt just seem petty, refusing to sign a simple document agreeing to not to trash your former employer (with whom you intend to continue to benefit from a shared interest in said company). It wasn't as if Altman was threatening to take back equity. Little more than a "just be nice, OK" and yet somehow that is asking too much?
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoDamn, is this Sammy's Sock or do you just have elementary level reading comprehension?
- af3d 2y agoThe latter, apparently. TBH I answered after hearing about the story elsewhere and it just struck me as fairly benign for an employer to ask as much from a (soon-to-be) former employee. I am not a lawyer anyway so I honestly have no idea what the proper legal interpretation might be. I was just commenting on what seems to be the unfortunate state of human affairs these days. It just feels like people are so much more prone to go on the offensive over what amounts to a simple request for civility. Of course down here we still honor the humble handshake. Maybe that is the difference?
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoI see why you'd assume, I deal with annoying young people who bitch about working 4 hours a day, annoying I know. There's still no excuse for being almost the same type of annoying. Get good. Idgaf if you're not a lwayer I just have greater than 5th grade reading level. You clearly displayed an annoying level of person. The type of annoying that encourages the type of genocides I sympathize with. The aware but dumb. Read. If you're autistic, have an extra chromosome, or will admit they are genuinely dumb. I'll apologize. But otherwise, nah.
- af3d 2y agoWell at least I wasn't nearly as annoying as the person I am responding to right now. Moving on....
- treme 2y agoPG is Altman's godfather more or less. I am disappoint of these OpenAI news as of late. 5. Sam Altman I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be. Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want. https://p@ulgraham.com/5founders.html https://p@ulgraham.com/5founders.html *edited link due to first post getting deleted
- mvdtnz 2y ago[flagged]
- brap 2y agoThis relationship feels like Michael and Ryan from The Office. One is a well meaning but very naive older person who desperately wants to be liked by the cool kids, the other is a pretentious young conman who soars to the top by selling his “vision”. Michael is a huge simp for Ryan and thinks of himself as Ryan’s mentor, but is ultimately backstabbed by him just like everyone else.
- wozer 2y agoReally? I never thought of pg as naive.
- tivert 2y agoCan't we all just go back to being positive and amazed with OpenAI and it's technology? Why does everyone have to be so negative about tech?
- flembat 2y agoI also welcome our new AI overlords. It's not really the tech that is negative it is the humans manipulating it for profit and power, and behaving obnoxiously. The tech is very useful.
- arnklint 2y agoI thought freedom of speech was a foundational thing in the US. But I guess anyone could be silenced with enough economic incentive?
- ssnistfajen 2y agoFreedom of speech in regard to public institutions. For private entities/individuals, any contract you willingly sign will reign supreme over whatever this "freedom of speech" thing is unless there's written law that explicitly forbids the forms of retaliation described within said contracts.
- seffect 2y agoStreisand Effect at work
- aAaaArrRgH 2y agoI tried to delete my ChatGPT account but the confirmation button remained locked. Anyone else have the same issue?
- surume 2y agoyikes... turns out that lily is actually a venus fly trap...
- _jab 2y agoOpenAI's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month only continues to worsen. It's pretty established now that they had some exceptionally anti-employee provisions in their exit policies to protect their fragile reputation. Sam Altman is bluntly a liar, and his credibility is gone. Their stance as a pro-artist platform is a joke after the ScarJo fiasco, that clearly illustrates that creative consent was an afterthought. Litigation is assumed, and ScarJo is directly advocating for legislation to prevent this sort of fiasco in the future. Sam Altman's involvement is again evident from his trite "her" tweet. And then they fired their "superalignment" safety team for good measure. As if to shred any last measure of doubt that this company is somehow more ethical than any other big tech company in their pursuit of AI. Frankly, at this point, the board should fire Sam Altman again, this time for good. This is not the company that can, or should, usher humanity into the artificial intelligence era.
- kashyapc 2y agoGreat, if these documents are credible, this is exactly what I was implying[1] yesteday. Here, listen to Altman say how he is "genuinely embarrassed": "this is on me and one of the few times i've been genuinely embarrassed running openai; i did not know this was happening and i should have." The first thing the above conjures up is the other disgraced Sam (Bankman-Fried) saying "this is on me" when FTX went bust. I bet euros-to-croissants I'm not the only one to notice this. Some amount of corporate ruthlessness is part of the game, whether we like it or not. But these SV robber-barrons really crank it up to something else. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40425735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40425735
- fisheuler 2y agosmells like game of thrones.
- aswegs8 2y agoDo you really believe he was genuinely embarrassed? All his public statements lately have been just PR BS. Nothing genuine there.
- kashyapc 2y agoNo, I don't. That why I put it in "scare quotes". You wouldn't get that impression had you read my comment I linked above :) — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40425735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40425735 I was trying to be a bit restrained in my criticism; otherwise, it gets too repetitive.
- lexapro 2y ago"this is on me" --> "look at what a great leader I am, taking responsibility for other people's mistakes" "i've been genuinely embarrassed" --> "yep, totally not my fault actually" "I should have known" --> "other people fucked this up, and they didn't even inform me"
- tejohnso 2y agoKind of like a humblebrag but for accountability.
- cambaceres 2y ago> this is on me and one of the few times i've been genuinely embarrassed running openai This statement seems to suggest that feeling embarrassed by one's actions is a normal part of running a company. In reality, the expectation is that a CEO should strive to lead with integrity and foresight to avoid situations that lead to embarrassment.
- pompino 2y ago>This statement seems to suggest that feeling embarrassed by one's actions is a normal part of running a company. It suggests humans makes mistakes and sometimes own up to them - which is a good thing. > CEO should strive to lead with integrity and foresight to avoid situations that lead to embarrassment. There is no human who does this , or are you saying turn the CEO role over to AI? :)
- notshift 2y agoSo what happened to Daniel Kokotajlo, the ex-OAI employee who made a comment saying that his equity was clawed back? Was it a miscommunication and he was referring to unvested equity, or is Sama just lying? In the original context, it sounded very much like he was referring to clawed-back equity. I’m trying to find the link.
- notshift 2y agohttps://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kovCotfpTFWFXaxwi/?commentId=G97BaFw83cvegttbv#G97BaFw83cvegttbv https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kovCotfpTFWFXaxwi/?commentId...
- coahn 2y agoIn my third world country, when they do something unethical they say "everything is in accordance with the law", here it's "this is on me", both are very cynical. From the time they went private, it was apparent that this company is unethical to say the least. Given what it is building, this can be very dangerous, but I think they are more proficient in creating hype, than actually coming up with something meaningful.
- redbell 2y agoThe amount [and scale] of practices, chaos and controversies caused by OpenAI since ChatGPT was released are "on par" with the powerful products it has built since.. in a negative way! These are the hottest controversial events so far, in a chronological order: OpenAI's deviation from its original mission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34979981). The Altman's Saga (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611). The return of Altman (within a week) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38375239). Musk vs. OpenAI (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39559966). The departure of high-profile employees (Karpathy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39365935 ,Sutskever: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40361128). "Why can’t former OpenAI employees talk?" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40393121).
- gdiamos 2y agoWhy is AI so dramatic? I just watched mean girls and this is worse.
- l0b0 2y agoI would like to answer that, but OpenAI could probably spend $100,000 per detractor to crush them and still laugh all the way to the bank.
- jnsaff2 2y agoMoney. The hype is really strong, the hype might even be justified, insane amounts of money flow in. There is a land grab going on. Blood is in the water, all the sharks are circling.
- nicce 2y agoAfter all that money, nobody can never even think of saying that it was wasted. To keep the investment value high and justifiable, they all agree and go on with the hype. Until the end.
- interludead 2y agoMoney is the root of all evil...
- wouldbecouldbe 2y agoWho is bullish or bearish on OpenAI? Now that LLM alternatives are getting better and better, as well as having well funded competitors. They don't yet have seem to developed a new, more advanced technology. What's their long term moat?
- andy_ppp 2y agoI think it’s time to cancel that Chat GPT subscription and move to something else. I am tired of the arrogance of these companies and particularly their narcissistic leaders who constantly want to make themselves the centre of the piece. It’s absolutely ridiculous to run a company as if you’re the lead in a contemporary drama.
- Symmetry 2y agoAnthropic was founded by ex OpenAI employees who were concerned with the way it was being run and their language models are comparable, better for some things but worse than others. I also canceled my ChatGPT subscription and I will say I'll miss the GTP-4o multi-modal features.
- andy_ppp 2y agoI was thinking of giving Gemini a try, one thing I’m pretty certain of is that Demis Hassabis is consistently candid.
- redbell 2y ago> ..or agreeing not to criticize the company, with no end date Oh! free speech is on trade! We used to hear the above statement coming from some political regimes but this is the first time I read it in the tech world. Would we live to witness more variations of this behavior on a larger scale?! > High-pressure tactics at OpenAI > That meant the former employees had a week to decide whether to accept OpenAI’s muzzle or risk forfeiting what could be millions of dollars > When ex-employees asked for more time to seek legal aid and review the documents, they faced significant pushback from OpenAI. > “We want to make sure you understand that if you don't sign, it could impact your equity. That's true for everyone, and we're just doing things by the book,” Although they've been able to build the most capable AI models that could replace a lot of human jobs, they struggle to humanely manage the people behind these models!!
- dominojab 2y ago[dead]
- lhnz 2y agoI'm surprised that an executive or lawyer didn't realise the reputational damage adding these clauses would eventually cause the leadership team. Were they really stupid enough to think that the amount of money being offered would bend some of the most principled people in the world? Whoever allowed those clauses to be added and let them remain has done more damage to the public face of OpenAI than any aggravated ex-employee ever could.
- boh 2y agoIt's funny how finding out about corporate misdoing has almost a common ritual attached to it. First shock and dismay is expressed to the findings, then the company leadership has to say it was a mistake (rather than an obvious strategy they literally signed off on), we then bring up the contradiction. Does this display of ignorance from every side really need to take place? Why bother asking for an explanation, they obviously did the thing they obviously did and will obviously do as much as possible to keep doing as much of things like that they can get away with.
- lenerdenator 2y agoIt's okay everyone. Silicon Valley will save us. Pay no mind to the "mistakes" they've made over the last 60 years.
- m3kw9 2y agoI feel there is a smear campaign going on to tarnish OpenAI
- blueyes 2y ago[flagged]
- animanoir 2y agoMr. Altman seems like a quite pedantic and evil people to work with—absolute psychopath.
- ionwake 2y agoDoes anyone remember the name of that coder who made a kickstarter for his game but he was unable to finish it because it was a bit too big ( but still epic ) and then due to his talent he got hired at OpenAI? I always wanted to follow him on Twitter but I forgot his name :\ if anyone knows that be great Edit - sry why is this the top comment
- CRConrad 2y agoFrom OpenAI's "fuller statement": > “We're incredibly sorry that we're only changing this language now; it doesn't reflect our values or the company we want to be.” Yeah, right. Words don't necessarily reflect one's true values, but actions do. And to the extent that they really are "incredibly sorry", it's not because of what they did, but that they got caught doing it.