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Ask HN: Why are so many people leaving OpenAI?

26 points by p1esk 2y ago

OpenAI has been losing key people recently. Do you think this will impact their ability to lead?

atleastoptimal 2y ago
Probably because Anthropic/Google offered double their current pay with less work.
- sk11001 2y ago
  Do we know that this has happened or are you just guessing?
  - atleastoptimal 2y ago
    This is based on reported habits on the top AI labs on their strategies, Google's recent bid of spending billions to essentially rehire an old employee, and the general nature of people switching jobs in the tech world for a higher salary
    - sk11001 2y ago
      So nothing specific about OpenAI.
      - atleastoptimal 2y ago
        That's why I said probably, and yes it was based on more specific assessment of Google/Anthropic's hiring practices now for AI hires
matthewfelgate 2y ago
If you come for the king, you best not miss.
sk11001 2y ago
Are many people leaving? Or is it a couple of very visible people?
CareerAdvice01 2y ago
Because OpenAI cannot offer them competitive compensation, anymore. Not when they can court VCs and get hundreds of millions of seed funding to setup their own AI startup. Also OpenAI is by this point a mature project so lots of people might feel a bit stifled in their freedom and they might be dying to explore new ideas.
bbor 2y ago
IMHO, as an outsider enthusiast: It's an grab bag of more-or-less common reasons that are present in different relative amounts in different people. In rough order of importance: 1. People are concerned that the leadership is not acting with the best interests of the company in mind, specifically Sam and Greg. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_openai_employee_describes_sam_altman_as/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_open... and other coverage from the ouster scandal from last winter. This even lead to him walking back from billions of dollars, which is pretty remarkable: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/26/openais-sam-altman-tells-employees-he-didnt-get-giant-equity-stake.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/26/openais-sam-altman-tells-emp... 2. People are concerned that the leadership is not acting with the best interests of the public in mind, specifically in regard to the risk of recklessly creating a meaningfully "human-like" AI and giving it control of significant resources. Here's a discussion of how they've moved away from their very pro-public Charter: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/openai-plans-tectonic-shift-from-nonprofit-to-for-profit-giving-altman-equity/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/opena... and here's an opinion piece on the risks: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/ https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no... 3. Other firms are offering huge incentives to OpenAI employees, and engineers are doing what engineers always do: job-hopping to jump a rank or two in the job ladder. From last year, but still relevant IMO: https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/openai-ai-talent-poaching-war/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/openai-ai-talent-poaching-... 4. People are concerned that OpenAI's future is not as bright as it seems given its current (objective) technical dominance, a discussion centering around terms like "moat" and "propriety data" and "open source vs. closed source". Some challenges facing the company include: quite uncertain lawsuits of existential size (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-t...), the fact they're losing $5B/y without a proven path out of that (https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/openai-training-and-inference-costs-could-reach-7bn-for-2024-ai-startup-set-to-lose-5bn-report/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/openai-training-a...), and, on a meta level, your question itself -- they've lost basically all of their top scientists. For good general coverage and the quintessential recent example, look for commentary on Mira Murati's exit last week, e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/tech/openai-technology-chief-mira-murati-leaving/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/tech/openai-technology-chief-...
PreciousH 2y ago
Definitely, the fact sam altman could tell investors not to invest in competitors like xAI and anthropic says a lot
rl3 2y ago
This was just published the other day and goes in-depth about your question: https://fortune.com/2024/10/01/openai-sam-altman-mira-murati-gpt-4o-o1-chatgpt-turbulent-year/ https://fortune.com/2024/10/01/openai-sam-altman-mira-murati...
cm2012 2y ago
Partially it's weirdness from Open AI transitioning from non profit to profit, partially it's from people who are delusional about the dangers of AI, partly it's great unheard of offers from other companies.

26 points by p1esk 2y ago

OpenAI has been losing key people recently. Do you think this will impact their ability to lead?

atleastoptimal 2y ago

Probably because Anthropic/Google offered double their current pay with less work.

sk11001 2y ago
Do we know that this has happened or are you just guessing?
- atleastoptimal 2y ago
  This is based on reported habits on the top AI labs on their strategies, Google's recent bid of spending billions to essentially rehire an old employee, and the general nature of people switching jobs in the tech world for a higher salary
  - sk11001 2y ago
    So nothing specific about OpenAI.
    - atleastoptimal 2y ago
      That's why I said probably, and yes it was based on more specific assessment of Google/Anthropic's hiring practices now for AI hires

matthewfelgate 2y ago

If you come for the king, you best not miss.

sk11001 2y ago

Are many people leaving? Or is it a couple of very visible people?

CareerAdvice01 2y ago

Because OpenAI cannot offer them competitive compensation, anymore. Not when they can court VCs and get hundreds of millions of seed funding to setup their own AI startup. Also OpenAI is by this point a mature project so lots of people might feel a bit stifled in their freedom and they might be dying to explore new ideas.

bbor 2y ago

IMHO, as an outsider enthusiast: It's an grab bag of more-or-less common reasons that are present in different relative amounts in different people. In rough order of importance: 1. People are concerned that the leadership is not acting with the best interests of the company in mind, specifically Sam and Greg. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_openai_employee_describes_sam_altman_as/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_open... and other coverage from the ouster scandal from last winter. This even lead to him walking back from billions of dollars, which is pretty remarkable: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/26/openais-sam-altman-tells-employees-he-didnt-get-giant-equity-stake.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/26/openais-sam-altman-tells-emp... 2. People are concerned that the leadership is not acting with the best interests of the public in mind, specifically in regard to the risk of recklessly creating a meaningfully "human-like" AI and giving it control of significant resources. Here's a discussion of how they've moved away from their very pro-public Charter: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/openai-plans-tectonic-shift-from-nonprofit-to-for-profit-giving-altman-equity/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/opena... and here's an opinion piece on the risks: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/ https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no... 3. Other firms are offering huge incentives to OpenAI employees, and engineers are doing what engineers always do: job-hopping to jump a rank or two in the job ladder. From last year, but still relevant IMO: https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/openai-ai-talent-poaching-war/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/openai-ai-talent-poaching-... 4. People are concerned that OpenAI's future is not as bright as it seems given its current (objective) technical dominance, a discussion centering around terms like "moat" and "propriety data" and "open source vs. closed source". Some challenges facing the company include: quite uncertain lawsuits of existential size (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-t...), the fact they're losing $5B/y without a proven path out of that (https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/openai-training-and-inference-costs-could-reach-7bn-for-2024-ai-startup-set-to-lose-5bn-report/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/openai-training-a...), and, on a meta level, your question itself -- they've lost basically all of their top scientists. For good general coverage and the quintessential recent example, look for commentary on Mira Murati's exit last week, e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/tech/openai-technology-chief-mira-murati-leaving/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/tech/openai-technology-chief-...

PreciousH 2y ago

Definitely, the fact sam altman could tell investors not to invest in competitors like xAI and anthropic says a lot

rl3 2y ago

This was just published the other day and goes in-depth about your question: https://fortune.com/2024/10/01/openai-sam-altman-mira-murati-gpt-4o-o1-chatgpt-turbulent-year/ https://fortune.com/2024/10/01/openai-sam-altman-mira-murati...

cm2012 2y ago

Partially it's weirdness from Open AI transitioning from non profit to profit, partially it's from people who are delusional about the dangers of AI, partly it's great unheard of offers from other companies.