If anything they should have had equity in the for-profit side of the company to ensure that their incentives were aligned, if that is even your point.

I think it brings up a very interesting test case for how this particular kind of ownership structure can fail. In another thread, it strikes the difference between authority and power, which I think was very clearly made here.

That all being said, it seems like things have taken a turn for the worse, and if anything, this board has set the mission of a truly open AI world even further back. There seem to be some real Luddites on the board who seem to think they'll some how be able to cram Pandora back in the box after it has well escaped control. If anything, the should swing the gate wide and at least open source the everything else so as to prevent Microsoft from having a complete monopoly on the future of AI (how things seem to be shaping up).

[–] TurtleJoe@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The non-profit has a corporate arm. take a look at that structure.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I mean, that seems like a generally fine structure.

I think they maybe could have figured out a different path that didn't involve MS. But otherwise, it seems fine.

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll ask ai to explain that diagram

[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

As a large language model, I am incapable of explaining anything that would be of use

[–] banneryear1868@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The kind of ownership is pretty normal across a wide range of industries, a lot of hospitals in the US operate with a similar structure, NGOs and "foundations," co-ops, independent regulators, etc. Whatever's happening in this case is remarkable but probably not because of how the board operates in this role specifically. We have to know why they fired him to know what's going on but that's unlikely. It could have been completely mundane but that doesn't matter now.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah that's what I thought. I've formed/ been a part of several non-profits that have looked at developing for-profit components to fund the non-profit mission.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 4 points 1 year ago

I'm a shareholder in a non-profit. Specifically, the Green Bay Packers. It basically means having a unique piece of team memorabilia.