Altman forgives Sutskever; Microsoft will serve observer role on new OpenAI board.
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Sam Altman officially back as OpenAI CEO: “We didn’t lose a single employee”
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What a strange thing for Digital God to ask them to do. Trust in its plan I guess.
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Translation: We will wring every ounce of productivity and brilliance from his body and throw away the husk years later. There is ZERO chance Altman ever forgets this. He just needs him AND can't afford to let him walk out the door to a competitor.
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In the academic field of international relations, this is known as coup-proofing. From an influential 1999 paper:
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It's been widely reported that Altman has a negligible stake in OpenAI's equity. I wonder if they will put together a massive retention package or not, given the extreme loyalty on display here. He purports to not care about money, but I have extreme doubts and we will see once the new board is in place.
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I don't know if he needs him, this may simply be a way to calm down investors, who don't like drama. Behind the scenes, Sutskever may as well look for another job, because whatever they have him doing now, that's where he's going to be stuck for the rest of his time at openAI, at best. At worst he's in a "think about what you did" non-job waiting for the decision to leave on his own. There's no recovering from what he did, and didn't get away with.
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So exploitative capitalism won over technology idealism in the end. No idea how this will play out and am not gonna predict any outlandish doomsday scenario but wouldn’t be surprised if we see some unexpected negative consequences from this down the line.
Hope I’m wrong though
Hope I’m wrong though
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If I was Ilya, I would totally bolt asap. I’m sure it won’t be difficult for him to find a new job given his qualifications.
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I guess all those high-minded scientists who wanted to benefit humanity really just want to get the big bucks while the getting is good
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At the end of the day, people care most about their families and want to provide for them. That's not a crime in my book. Benefiting humanity doesn't pay for school or put food on the table. Their work to increase productivity isn't evil.
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Several paywalled articles confirm that the share sale is back on track. Money makes the world go around.
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I wish someone would pay me to do nothing, as long as it’s a WFH position lol.
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And if anyone learned anything, it's just how much influence Microsoft has over OpenAI. Which will likely give pause to other corps depending on it.
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Would you be happier with $1 million/year to sit on a roof, or $10 million/year to work for another company (your pick of Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Sales Force, Nvidia, etc)?
[Edited to clarify per year]
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I think OpenAI is on even better footing now that Microsoft is more involved. They aren't going anywhere and if OpenAI falls apart again, I know Microsoft will swoop in with a slot-in replacement.
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Forgive Ilya Sutskever?
LOL, of course, since the whole OpenAI was originally his work and is critical to its future. Altman? not so much. What did he contribute outside of his usual powert grab and ally/pawn placement?
LOL, of course, since the whole OpenAI was originally his work and is critical to its future. Altman? not so much. What did he contribute outside of his usual powert grab and ally/pawn placement?
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You sure they won't just rush out "Chat GPTME" or "Chat GPT Vista"?
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That’s actually a really interesting question. You’re basically asking if $100,000/year for 10 years for nothing is better or worse than $100,000/year for 100 years in exchange for being MS’s (et al.) little bitch and having little or no free time for my own pursuits.
I’m going with the first option, obviously.
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He contributed virtually limitless compute from MSFT. Given how strongly Satya backed Altman in this, it's pretty clear that MSFT'S investment wouldn't have happened at that scale without Altman.
Without compute provided by MSFT, ChatGPT wouldn't exist.
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90% of the employees threatened to quit if he wasn't reinstated which doesn't sound like ally/pawn placement to me.
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Sorry I meant per year. I would be MS’s bitch for a year so that I don’t have to walk into an office for 10 years. Easy trade.
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That would tank OpenAI's valuation, and all employees with equity would hate him for destroying their golden goose. Ilya is the brains behind the actual AI and a world-class AI expert, not the guy who's good at talking.
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Hundreds of OpenAI employees were willing to quit their jobs to bring him back. He must have done something to earn that kind of loyalty. Would you quit your job if your CEO suddenly got fired?
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Altman no longer being on the board gives me hope they can maintain their mission. We shall see as it progresses.
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Eh you want both, but only need SamA. Ilya can’t do it alone and he needs cash and compute resources for a team. SamA can raise money for a team because his partners/investors know he is a relatively safe bet - he knows how to commercialize product-market-fit. SamA is more valuable than Ilya, as he represents 90% of the company.
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Eh. The scientists / engineers at OpenAI have an incredibly desirable skillset and could easily find work at a number of places if they wanted to. They are also making well into six figures so aren't exactly hurting to put food on the table. These aren't some poor manual laborers forced to work at the bomb factory to feed their families - they are doing it by choice.
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Agreed. I feel like everyone is their pursuit of money always seems to forget that money, no matter how much, cannot buy more time. I'd rather "retire" on 1M a year, with paid off everything, and vacay around the world without stress than burn out at MSFT and lose another 5-10 years of my life just to make $50-$100M that I'll never be able to spend and just sits in an account when I die.
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My cynical take; Altman might offer a better chance of enrichment in a future IPO of the profit making part of the OpenAI entity, or similar: other board members didn’t in the staff eyes. If you are seeing yourself as being a core team member in bringing in a new era, you want to feel you’ll be enriched in due course and not just a few executives at MS and others replicating your progress elsewhere reaping those rewards while your board bleats about AI safety.
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Theres no wrong choice here, just revealed preferences.
Money does buy a lot of time, you can buy people’s labor - private chef/housekeeping, helicopter/private jet/chauffeur, and top medical treatments. That doesn’t add up to 10 years though.
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