And 500 more OpenAI employees might follow: https://www.neowin.net/news/over-half-of-openais-employees-may-quit-unless-the-board-leaves-and-brings-sam-altman-back/
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
224 points (95.5% liked)
Technology
59340 readers
6021 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I really don't get the employee position. They want to work at Microsoft? Literally the opposite of everything _open_ai claimed to stand for?
What a joke this whole "non-profit" owning "for-profit" structure turned out to be. For profit structure is like a virus and we see again and again it doesn't integrate with other systems.
Altman and Brockman were the founding leadership of the company/organization and many of these employees are "rockstar" researchers. They wanted to be a part of what they were leading — so it makes sense they still would even if it's under Microsoft.
If OpenAI doesn't have stable, rational and deliberative leadership, none of what they claim to stand for matters. The board did an end-run around the chair and summarily fired Altman Friday afternoon without consulting with any other stakeholders beforehand. They still haven't offered a coherent explanation for why they did what they did.
There's no "other stakeholders" tho. It's a non profit board with a profit capped company that they control. The whole goal of the structure was to resist monetary capture and yet here we are
A stakeholder is something different than a stockholder. A stakeholder could be an employee, investor, customer, someone selling equipment to them or even the community they work in.
Basically anyone who’s affected by their actions.
What makes you assume the employees ever cared about whether OpenAI is non-profit or not?
This is devolving into the worst way this could have gone. If he had spun of a new startup at least it would have provided real competition to GPT, building out in-house Microsoft models when they already have OpenAI license is ick.
I had read that Altman was "ambivalent" to re-joining OpenAI and the board wanted him back after regretting their decision? (presumably after the backlash)
Wonder how much MS paid the board.
Does OpenAI own the related intellectual property? Is there a non compete contract that he signed? This could be interesting.
Non-competes aren't a thing in California. OpenAI obviously own the IP, but that doesn't mean an investor like MS wouldn't have enough rights to effectively take it and build from it.
They got rid of him.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The board of directors of OpenAI, the high-flying artificial intelligence start-up, said in a note to employees on Sunday night that its former chief, Sam Altman, would not be returning to his job, while naming his second interim replacement in two days.
The board said Mr. Shear has a “unique mix of skills, expertise and relationships that will drive OpenAI forward,” according to the memo viewed by The New York Times.
Microsoft, which has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI, only learned of Mr. Altman’s exit one minute before it was announced, while other investors discovered that he had been forced out via social media.
“The board firmly stands by its decision as the only path to advance and defend the mission of OpenAI,” said the memo on Sunday, referring to Mr. Altman’s removal from the company on Friday.
Since OpenAI released its hit ChatGPT chatbot almost a year ago, artificial intelligence has captured the public’s imagination, with hopes that it could be used for important work like drug research or to help teach children.
On Monday, as OpenAI employees signed the letter saying they might leave to join Mr. Altman’s new project at Microsoft, one name stood out: Mr. Sutskever.
The original article contains 1,262 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Even autotldr uses cliffhangers now, damn.
I guess this didn't age well.
Well, I’m micro-protesting all of this craziness. Cancelled my renewal of CGPT4 next month. I don’t support the board, Sam going to Microsoft, and a majority of employees leaving to Microsoft.
Go use Microsoft’s version of CGPT4. You’ll see why.
Wasn't he basically working for Microsoft already while being employed by OpenAI?
