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So the non-profit retains control but we all know that Altman controls the board of the non-profit and I'd be shocked if he won't have significant stock in the
by lolinder 1y ago
So the non-profit retains control but we all know that Altman controls the board of the non-profit and I'd be shocked if he won't have significant stock in the new for-profit (from TFA: "we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock"). Which means that regardless of whether the non-profit has control on paper, OpenAI is now even better structured for Sam Altman's personal enrichment.
No more caps on profit, a simpler structure to sell to investors, and Altman can finally get that 7% equity stake he's been eyeing. Not a bad outcome for him given the constraints apparently imposed on them by "the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California".
- elAhmo 1y agoWe have seen how much power does the board have after the firing of Altman - none. Let's see how this plays out. PBC effectively means nothing - just take a look at Xai and its purchase of Twitter. I would love to listen reasoning explaining why this ~33 billion USD move is benefiting public.
- ignoramous 1y ago> We have seen how much power does the board have after the firing of Altman - none. Right; so, "Worker Unions" work.
- wmf 1y agoChatGPT is free. That's the public benefit.
- nativeit 1y agoDefine “free”.
- fooker 1y agofree as in free beer
- celdon25 1y agoIt’s like a free beer, but it’s Bud Light, lukewarm, and your reaction to tasting the beer goes toward researching ways to make you appreciate the lukewarm Bud Light for its marginal value, rather than making that beer taste better or less unhealthy. They’ll try very hard to convince you that they have though. It parallels their approach to AI Alignment.
- windsignaling 1y agoI don't pay money for it?
- nicce 1y agoI will give you a free beer if I can listen all your personal conversations.
- sekai 1y agoThey don't collect data?
- wmf 1y agoIf you use it, that means you received more value than you gave up. It's called consumer surplus.
- patmcc 1y agoThat's effectively every business that isn't a complete rent-seeking monopoly. It's not a very good measure. edit: to be clear, it's not a bad thing - we should want companies that create consumer surplus. But that's the default state of companies in a healthy market.
- jaccola 1y agoIf I pay £200,000 for a car, I received more value than I gave up, otherwise I wouldn't have given the owner £200,000 for her car. No reasonable person would say the car was "free"...
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> If you use it, that means you received more value than you gave up. It's called consumer surplus This is true for literally any transaction. Actually, it's true for any rational action. If you're being tortured, and you decide it's not worth it to keep your secrets hidden any longer, you get more than you give up when you stop being tortured.
- klabb3 1y agoIt’s only true in theory and over a single transaction, not necessarily over time. The hack that VCs have exploited for decades now is subsidizing products and acquiring competition to eventually enshittify. In this case, when OpenAI dials up the inevitable enshittification, they’ll have gotten a ton of data from their users to use for their proprietary closed AI.
- buuuutwut 1y ago
- patmcc 1y agoGoogle offers a great many things for free. Should they get beneficial tax treatment for it?
- wmf 1y agoPBCs have no beneficial tax treatment and neither does OpenAI.
- moralestapia 1y agoSo, what's the point of a PBC? Not being snarky here, like what is the purported thesis behind them?
- nemomarx 1y agomarketing to certain types of philanthropic investors? I think
- insane_dreamer 1y agoMostly branding, like Google's "do no evil" Some founders truly believe in structuring the company for the benefit of the public, but Altman has already shown he's not one of them.
- patmcc 1y agoHuh. Then yah, what the heck? Why not just be a regular corp?
- jampekka 1y agoBranding, and perhaps a demand from the judges. In practice it doesn't mean anything if/when they stuff the board with people who want to run it as a normal LLC.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoThat's like saying AWS is free. ChatGPT has a limited use free tier just like most other SaaS products out there.
- paulddraper 1y agoThe board had plenty of power. There was never a coherent explanation of its firing the CEO. But they could have stuck with that decision if they believed in it.
- freejazz 1y agoThe question is not if they could, it is if they would.
- michaelt 1y agoThe explanation seemed pretty obvious to me: They set up a nonprofit to deliver an AI that was Open. Then things went unexpectedly well, people were valuing them at billions of dollars, and they suddenly decided they weren't open any more. Suddenly they were all about Altman's Interests Safety (AI Safety for short). The board tried to fulfil its obligation to get the nonprofit to do the things in its charter, and they were unsuccessful.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoThe explanation was pretty clear and coherent: The CEO was no longer adhering to the mission of the non-profit (which the board was upholding). But they found themselves alone in that it turns out the employees (who were employed by the for-profit company) and investors (MSFT in particular) didn't care about the mission and wanted to follow the money instead. So the board had no choice but to capitulate and leave.
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- whynotminot 1y agoIsn’t Sam already very rich? I mean it wouldn’t be the first time a guy wanted to be even richer, but I feel like we need to be more creative when divining his intentions
- viraptor 1y agoNah, worldcoin is now going to the US. He just wants to get richer. https://archive.is/JTuGE https://archive.is/JTuGE
- sigilis 1y agoWhy would we need to be more creative? The explanation of him wanting more money is perfectly adequate. Being rich results in a kind of limitation of scope for ambition. To the sufferer, a person who has everything they could want, there is no other objective worth having. They become eccentric and they pursue more money. We should have enrichment facilities for these people where they play incremental games and don’t ruin the world like the paperclip maximizers they are.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- whynotminot 1y ago> Why would we need to be more creative? The explanation of him wanting more money is perfectly adequate. Being rich results in a kind of limitation of scope for ambition. The dude announces new initiatives from the White House, regularly briefs Senators and senior DoD leaders, and is the top get for interviews around the world for AI topics. There’s a lot more to be ambitious about than just money.
- sigilis 1y agoThese are all activities he is engaging in to generate money through the company he has a stake in. None of those activities have a purpose other than selling the work of his company and presenting it as a good investment which is how he gets money. Maybe he wants to use the money in some nebulous future way, subjugating all people in a way that deals with his childhood trauma or whatever. That’s also something rich people do when they need a hobby aside from gathering more money. It’s not their main goal, except when they run into setbacks. People are not complicated when they are money hoarders. They might have had hidden depths once, but they are thin furrows in the ground next to the giant piles of money that define them now.
- richardw 1y agoOr, alternatively, it’s much harder to fight with one hand behind your back. They need to be able to compete for resources and talent given the market structure, or they fail on the mission. This is already impossibly hard. Approximately zero people commenting would be able to win this battle in Sam’s shoes. What would they need to do to begin to have a chance? Rather than make all the obvious comments “bad evil man wants to get rich”, think what it would take to achieve the mission. What would you need to do in his shoes, aside from just give up and close up shop? Probably this, at the very least. Edit: I don’t know the guy and many near YC do. So I accept there may be a lens I don’t have. But I’d rather discuss the problem, not the person.
- kadushka 1y agoIt seems like they lost most of their top talent - probably because of Altman.
- k__ 1y agoThe moment we stop treating "bad evil man wants to ge it rich" as a straw man, we can heal.
- thegreatpeter 1y agoExtra! Extra! Read all about it! "Bad evil man wants to get rich! We should enrich Google and Microsoft instead!"
- 1y ago
- MPSFounder 1y agoNever understood his appeal. Lacks charisma. Not technically savvy relative to many engineers at OpenAI(I doubt he would pass their own intern interviews, even less so their FT). Very unlikeable in person (comes off as fake for some reason, like a political plant). Who is vouching for this guy. When I met him, for some reason, he reminded me of Thiel. He is no Jobs
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gsibble 1y agoAltman is a clear sociopath. He's a sales guy and good executive. But he's only out for himself.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]