31 ms·
Sam Altman tells staff there’s no plan for him to receive ‘giant equity stake’
- fblp 2y agoIf he does get equity (not options) then he'll have to pay taxes on it at the 409a valuation which is usually lower than market, but would still be crazy high.
- paulpauper 2y agoRevisit in a few years. I am sure he will get something.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoSam didn't put billions in. Others did.
- fhdsgbbcaA 2y agoHey now, he spent at least 15 hours a week telling various groups of people at OpenAI petty lies in between dinners with Saudi Princes and sundry well-heeled, gullible, low-lifes. That time is worth money!
- coldn00dl3s 2y agoI am pretty sure this started brewing in the pot when o1 and it's pricing models were conceptualized
- talldayo 2y agoThat's exactly what someone trying to maximize the value of their equity would say.
- Lerc 2y agohttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kafkatrap#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kafkatrap#Noun >A sophistical rhetorical device in which any denial by an accused person serves as evidence of guilt.
- projectileboy 2y agoHe would have to deny it, even if there were none of the shenanigans surrounding all this.
- ElonChrist 2y ago[dead]
- quantified 2y agoThere are concepts of a plan, though.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago[flagged]
- fhdsgbbcaA 2y agoHe does strike me as the kind of guy who would eat Fido in one gulp if he saw any monetary advantage in it.
- kumarvvr 2y agoHe also denied OpenAI will be a for-profit company. Yet, here we are. When billions of dollars are up for grabs, values, ethics, morality, past promises and everything else in between will be thrown out the window. For society, the framework should always be that a corporation is inherently evil. It is only a matter of time when that evil presents itself.
- slimebot80 2y agoHey, he's in competition with his old mate Elon. Clearly this is what he's referencing. Tesla has made about 34bn in income over the last 3 years, with stormy waters ahead, yet Elon pocketed himself 56bn under the guise of saving humanity, which is a "vibe" OpenAI also needlessly projects.
- nightski 2y agoThat doesn't seem right to me, I am seeing $15B net income in 2023 alone. What am I missing.
- Ygg2 2y agoValuation isn't income.
- ivewonyoung 2y agoValuation is about $800B, not $15B.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoYou aren’t missing anything. The comment you’re responding to is wrong and understating net income for some reason. It was indeed $15B last year. Plus the targets set for Elon’s package was based on a number of metrics there were already met, so I don’t know why net income matters.
- slimebot80 2y agoHey you're right I updated the figure. It's better, but still ridiculous IMO. But people will justify it how they want.
- zerocrates 2y agoWhen you're saying the investors are demanding it, the board is saying they've discussed it but don't have specific numbers, saying there are no "current plans" is pretty weak tea as a denial. Okay, there's no plan today but you're... actively working on one?
- lolinder 2y agoThe timing of the executive departures is extremely suspicious. There's clearly a major shift happening here in Altman's favor, and even if he's not getting equity now it seems inevitable at this point. As others have noted, the wording here is also highly suspect: "no current plans" for a "giant equity stake" gives him at least two different paths to claim he never lied about the situation if and when he gets equity.
- ookblah 2y agorevisit this in a few years
- minwcnt5 2y agoIndeed, I heard there are plans for a giant equity stake to be awarded to a company called Notsam Naltman, LLC, which would leave nothing left to give to Sam Altman.
- minwcnt5 2y agoHe went on to tell them that he's only expecting a wee little equity stake that's just a single digit percentage.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoHow much credibility do you reckon Sam Altman's words have these days?
- outside1234 2y agoBasically none. He isn’t known as Scam Altman in the valley for nothing.
- senectus1 2y agoI was a bit distracted and read this as Sam Bankman-Fried, the realized it was Sam Altman, then realised there wasn't much light between the two names imho.
- throwup238 2y ago> then realised there wasn't much light between the two names imho. There is after you burn this image into your brain: https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1av88z5/first_photo_of_sam_bankmanfried_in_jail_goes_hard/ https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1av88z5/fir... :-)
- senectus1 2y agohahaha. ok I'll pay that.
- deepfriedchokes 2y agoYeah, but he’s good at it, though. That’s the amazing thing. It’s really obvious to everyone what he’s doing, and yet he still manages to pull it off, repeatedly. Paul Graham said: “Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.” Altman is a predator; people respect their power even if they fear their motives. The investor class love guys like him, because he doesn’t let ethics get in the way of seeking power. Same reason they loved Zuckerberg.
- 2y ago
- Apocryphon 2y agoWhy would he care about mere money when he gets to be the one to merge with the thing, burning like the brightest star?
- grahamj 2y ago"That was child's play for me"
- esafak 2y agoThe new "Dumb **, they trust me".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- phplovesong 2y agoSam Altman seems like a really shady guy. The tech community wont forget. Im sure there is better alternatives to OpenAI already, and new ones coming in the future.
- bmitc 2y agoThe tech community loves shady people and plain doesn't care. Look at where Musk is today. He's been lying and being an idiot for years. It's not like people didn't know about Altman. Yet, he somehow landed these extremely high paying and powerful jobs with literally no resume.
- RA_Fisher 2y agoIt’s cronyism.
- Simulacra 2y agoI'm trying not to be pessimistic, but the level of trust and faith that I have in Sam Altman is very low.
- joshdavham 2y ago> investors have raised concerns about Altman not having equity in the high-valued artificial intelligence company that he co-founded I think here lies the interesting point. I’m not gonna try to mindread Sam and guess at what his true intentions are, but the investors’ intentions are clear: align Sam’s incentives with profit. I wish him the best of luck in navigating this.
- 7e 2y agoSam already has equity in OpenAI though YC.
- georgeecollins 2y agoI think he deserves every dollar he can get to protect us from robot overlords!
- outside1234 2y agoBut wait! OpenAI are the robot overlords!
- hn_version_0023 2y agoLiars will lie to advance their position.
- dynjo 2y agoA masterclass in the classic rug pull.
- replwoacause 2y agoThat most of us saw coming from a mile away
- jjulius 2y ago>Regarding his potentially attaining an equity stake, Altman said, “There are no current plans here,” the person said. >OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor told CNBC in a statement that while the board has talked about the matter, no specific figures are on the table. >“The board has had discussions about whether it would be beneficial to the company and our mission to have Sam be compensated with equity, but no specific figures have been discussed nor have any decisions been made,” Taylor said. So, they're definitely talking about it and it's definitely an option. Yes, technically, there might not be a definitive plan, but the intent and want are both there, and at no point has anybody flatly said, "There will be no equity stake". Given Sam's history, none of what was said by them today means anything at all, and it cannot be trusted. This is just corporate weasel-wording.
- outside1234 2y agoDon’t google that I’m getting a $5B stock grant vibes
- gdiamos 2y ago[flagged]
- outside1234 2y agoCool story bro So what you are saying is that we need to keep guessing at the scam you are running. Because there is always a scam
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoI’m reading the sequel to Robert Grave’s classic, I, Claudius. In it, Cæsar Claudius describes the Imperial Senate’s process of proactive prostration. The Emperor never requests favours. Instead, ambitious Senators must guess his desires and offer them to him, at which point a song and dance is done about his refusing and the Senate insisting and him, reluctantly, accepting the honor.
- hintymad 2y agoSo did emperors in other countries. They didn’t want to be the new emperors after a successful usurpation. Instead, their followers needed to plead or even force them to accept the throne
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> didn’t want to be the new emperors after a successful usurpation. Instead, their followers needed to plead or even force them to accept the throne Believable in revolution—for every George Washington and Sulla we have dozens of Pinochets and Putins. After that, however, it’s a stupid lie. The emperor wants things and wants it to look like he was forced to accept it. This is the signature of despots, not even monarchs.
- hintymad 2y agoIn China, it's about showing that the emperors got the throne by god's will, not for any personal desire.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoSure. You’re still talking about getting the throne, not actions thereafter.
- outside1234 2y agoI think the only surprise in this is that he isn’t launching a crypto rug pull.
- replwoacause 2y agoBut I’ve got good news for anybody in the market for one: Trump just launched his poop log crypto scam.
- CatWChainsaw 2y agoHe tried already with Worldcoin.
- throwup238 2y agoThere's a rather simple reason why this is believable: as a board member of OpenAI Inc (the non profit), he is a disqualified person under self dealing rules [1][2]. If he actually gave himself a multi-billion dollar stake in the for-profit OpenAI Global LLC, it'd be the biggest self-dealing investigation in the history of nonprofits. The IRS and CA FTB would come down hard and OpenAI & Sam would spend a year+ dealing with the fallout. [1] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/private-foundations-indirect-self-dealing https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation... [2] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/acts-of-self-dealing-by-private-foundation https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation...
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoOpenAI needs money. To do that it must promise to incorporate. It cannot incorporate and then raise funds, because that would take time and give the non-profit blocking leverage. So Altman must raise money while giving a promise, no promise, because the company and non-profit are at arms length. That said, this is a public announcement. There is motivation more than legal for making this a public concern.
- throwup238 2y agoCan you explain what you mean? I'm not quite sure I follow. > OpenAI needs to raise funds and incorporate. Which OpenAI are we talking about? Non-profit or its for profit subsidiaries? They're all named OpenAI Inc, OpenAI Global LLC, OpenAI LLC, etc. The for-profit is already incorporated (since 2019 [1]), it just needs to be restructured before anyone is willing to put any more money in at crazy 12 figure valuations. AFAIK that means removing board control from the nonprofit to prevent another fiasco, converting Microsoft's deal to stock to undo the profit share cap thing, and create an employee stock pool to retain talent. > Because the company and non-profit are at arms length. I'm not so sure that they are (that said, I don't understand your overall point so this is probably a nitpick). The subsidiary definitely isn't a passive investment as far as UBIT is concerned, and I don't think they can ever be considered arms length if Altman is both CEO of the for-profit and on the board of the non-profit (as far as the corporate veil goes). > There is motivation more than legal for making this a public concern. It definitely feels like a trial balloon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#2019:_Transition_from_non-profit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#2019:_Transition_from_n...
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoWhenever I see him speak, he is vague and evasive. He either is untrustworthy or just has no idea what’s going on.