The OpenAI affair just keeps getting weirder. The ringleader of the decision to fire CEO Sam Altman has always seemed to be Ilya Sutskever, one of OpenAI's founders and its chief scientist. But now he has regrets:
More than 500 employees of OpenAI have threatened to leave the company if the current board doesn’t resign and reinstate former Chief Executive Sam Altman and former President Greg Brockman. The threat was made in a letter to the board of directors and among the signees was Ilya Sutskever.
....On Monday morning, Sutskever posted on X trying to repair the damage. “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions,” he wrote. “I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
What a complete shitshow.
It was originally presented as Altman was happy to plow ahead with AI without regard to consequences. So either IT workers are even more sociopathic than I think, or there's something we aren't being told.
Maybe the Open AI people figure there isn't much risk to the human race from even a 1000-dimensional Mad Libs generator.
Why is it that this seems to mimic the RepubliQan led House of Representatives.
I wonder how Altman got to be a cult leader in the first place. He wrote an unsuccessful social media app, somehow got to be CEO of Y-Combinator because Paul Graham liked him, dabbled in this and that including, of course, a crypto app that went nowhere, and finally landed as CEO of OpenAI in 2019. I'm sure he a smart guy and can talk a good line but honestly, unless he was writing the code, and I doubt he was, how valuable to OpenAI is he?
Based on everything I've read about him he seems to be a rare genius. He's guided many YC startups to success. I think most of OpenAI's success has been due to his leadership, and you can kind of see that by the reactions of the employees there.
Generally, there is a large distinction between startup geniuses and people who run a stable company. Usually there is a point where the founder has to be moved into a role where he/she can still be a crazed weasel and genius but the operation of the company is in the hands of a seasoned adult.
“You won’t believe what I heard!”
“Who has the inside scoop?”
“Here’s what really happened.”
“Let’s look at the winners and losers.”
Major media journos have turned into a bunch of nattering gossips, which is what they are anyway except with a certain pedigree. I can’t believe how much ink this story is getting, especially from people who know somewhere between nothing and one source’s side. Tech coverage is not about tech. It’s about personalities. On par with how teenagers talk about hip hop feuds.
Not sure that Altman is relevant as anything more than a figurehead or branding element, but in tech that role is important indeed.
All his interviews focus on his backstory, clothing (and color palette), and demeanor, which is, we are informed, atypical of tech CEOs. There is nothing to indicate he has any deeper understanding of AI than Elizabeth Holmes or Elon Musk do of the domains of their ventures.
It seems that the Open AI board decided that they weren't willing to let Elon get away with winning the 2023 Elon Musk Award for Destroying Market Cap. He definitely ran away with the 2022 award, shredding $44B in a few months.
But with X hurting at the start of 2023, there's only so much more damage for Musk to do. I bet there isn't much more than $20B of market cap left for him to destroy.
Open AI, OTOH, has an imputed market cap of $90B -- a great place to farm if you're looking to knock off $30B or more from a company's valuation.
I hope they win a nice prize.
The "investors" who put money into a "capped profit" company controlled by a non-profit entity of "Effective Altruists" were buying a puffed up bag of promises. Whether or not they could unload their shares to a greater fool before the bag popped was always a touch-and-go thing. And then Slutguy got a hankering to be the Big Enchilada and pushed the Magician holding the marks in thrall off the proscenium. The whole thing went up in flames.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
The only straightforward statement I can find that gives a reason for the firing says this:
The OpenAI board said it had removed Altman because he had not been “consistently candid” in his conversations with them.
What can this mean?
Board: We’ve heard you are thinking of starting another company. Is that true.
Altman: I am committed to OpenAI
Or something like that. Unless he’s taking the Mark Hurd prevaricated on his expense reports departure vector…
NYtimes is now reporting more than 700 or openai's 800 employees are threatening to leave for microsoft. and i wonder how many of the remaining are non-technical support staff who microsoft has no interest in hiring.
It kind of felt like the board would be forced to resign after what transpired. Yet, how can they lose their chief scientist who co-founded the company? It seems like a no-win outcome.
This could lead to a very weird, uncomfortable lawsuit between Microsoft and OpenAI.
Kara Swisher's latest podcast is an interview w/ MSFT CEO Satya Nadella about what happened and what they're doing going forward.
The Atlantic doesn't know what happened, but it has background on what was happening at OpenAI -- https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt-chaos/676050/