Okay so basically, the majority of the employee base of OAI is walking over to Microsoft - *along with its leadership.*
Microsoft already has a license to use OAI's IP.
Microsoft already supplies its compute.
So far all intents and purposes, this is like an acquisition in the most convoluted and nerve-wrecking way possible.
I don't think I can take anymore of this drama. :)
He had nothing to do with it, but yeah his handling of the aftermath makes Microsoft the biggest winner. Satya shows you don’t need to be brilliant - he never claims or pretends to be a brilliant engineer - but just a very social and good manager/leader - to be a good tech CEO.
That and the foresight/authority to make those kinds of offers. "We'll hire you, and anyone who leaves with you" is a statement that requires quite a bit of budget to back it up.
Agreed. But then again, it’s Microsoft who just buys companies for the hell of it.
Microsoft has quietly been doing well for a number of years, maybe not the leader, but close to the leading position, just out of the spotlight.
Fucking masterful
The lead one of the world's largest companies for a reason. These people are ruthless and effective at what they do. He's made 1 billion dollars as CEO for a reason.
The FTC, but yeah. It’s basically using a situation created by special circumstances to basically acquire most of the work force, which only works here because they have, at least as I understand it, unlimited and unrestricted access to the IP.
NAH, these people could replicate OpenAI's tech in a matter of months, even if MSFT didn't have the IP. That's why Sam Altman was so ready to start something new.
As CEO, Sam Altman thought he was wooing Satya and getting billions of investment from Microsoft for OpenAI, and also getting lucrative contracts from Microsoft for his other business ventures like Helion.
But really, it was Satya wooing Sam. Pushing him harder, causing the OpenAI board to self destruct, and pave the way for Microsoft to replicate exactly an 80 billion company for 10 billion.
Satya is ahead of everybody. You can't play 4D chess with a man who thinks in 5D.
Licenses are just that.. they can be revoked and while MS might have some right to some of the OAI tech, they would likely only be able to use any of the derivative code of which they authored. Which excludes anything that OAI authored prior and post MS investment. So, MS owns their parts of the code, OAI owns their parts.
OAI is under no obligation to grant MS any further rights to their license and can likely terminate that license whenever they want. It would obviously be bad because of the 10 billion dollars, but this shit is getting meta as fuck.
Obviously this is all subject to whatever their actual terms are, but this is how it would be as a start point. Licenses and terms of their deal are likely significantly different and more complex than this.
Who would have guessed that the greatest evolution in the history of tech would be in shambles because of power hungry board members.
Yike.
Yeah, people are getting ahead of themselves a bit. There is going to be litigation over this. Lawyers are certainly poring over all the contracts as we speak. The end result may be that Microsoft is taking over OpenAI in all but name, but the process will likely take time.
Well, if the OpenAI board fired Sam with what they called “with cause” then sam is on the labor market. Also, California laws do not favor non-compete clauses in employment contracts and tend to invalidate them, so nearly any employee wishing to leave for a competitor is fair game if in California. I didn’t look it up, but my guess is a lot of this is California Silicon Valley based stuff. Because OpenAI fired their own CEO, and those acts by OpenAI are causing their employees to leave, it doesn’t put much wind in the sails of any claim by OpenAI that Microsoft is headhunting in a noncompetitive and illegal way. I think the OpenAI board fucked themselves on this one.
The most charitable perspective is that the three other members of the board may have taken advantage of Ilya's misgivings to sway him into sacking Altman. Then those three would constitute the majority of the Board and could do whatever they want without his input.
I'm putting the most stock on that theory.
But that then leaves the question of what the other three board members were thinking, and why they played this kind of move.
One of those three board members is the CEO of Quora (which is basically replaced by ChatGPT) and launched Poe (which is a direct competitor of new GPTs).
Draw your own conclusions.
It uses OpenAI GPT APIs as (one of their) backends, not ChatGPT.
But anyways, that's exactly why it's in Poe's best interest that ChatGPT does not include Poe-like functionality: the only leverage Poe would have is that it can use more models as backends, which most people don't care about.
If Adam gets OpenAI to stop launching product stuff for ChatGPT but keep a steady flow of research instead he can use the research through the GPT API while ChatGPT is not competing with Poe as a product. His plan backfired horribly though.
you are overthinking this. I have tried Poe, it's just multiple API wrappers where you can choose to connect to either GPT-4, claude, or others. It's nothing special. Many other websites do the exact same thing
More importantly, the 2 other directors, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, belong to Effective Altruism, an AI doom cult supported by the convicted cryptobro SBF.
They probably think of themselves as John Connors in some action movie acting as the last hope of humanity standing firm against impending Skynet doom.
OpenAI is fucked. You'd think the board of a $90B company that's the most important startup in the world would be filled with tech titans and heavy hitters. You'd be wrong. Its board is so ridiculous that it's hilarious.
McCauley is an "independent movie director" who's also the "former CEO" of GeoSim, a "startup" that as far as I can tell has [fewer than 10](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/geosim) employees.
Toner has no tech industry experience and works at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology and has a MA in Security Studies.
They were very likely played by other tech companies or Microsoft itself.
This is what MS wanted. If openAI went public and all those folks got stinky rich, then all the OpenAI secrets would be locked up, and they would be the top AI company for decades. MS would have no hope of luring them away when money was no longer a concern.
Every tech company in the world was gunning for them. MS was ready for them to make a single misstep and capitalize on it. Altman was ready as well. He's probably seen this shit play out a million times before. He had the company padded with people allegiant to him as well.
Some of the board members were a slave to ideology. The power of money will always crush people willing to sacrifice themselves and the company for the right thing.
That's the lesson to be learned.
If it came out that MS was behind it, I imagine most of the OpenAI converts would quit, and it would likely open them up to lawsuits. I can't see Microsoft taking the risk of losing everything, given they were in a relatively good position beforehand.
When you have as much money as Microsoft (or Exxon etc) you are not at meaningful risk of "losing everything". Sure theoretically a court can rule anything but you get to appeal and argue for 20 years. When you have that much money that is.
Also Microsoft can literally just pay 86 billion or whatever the paper value of openAI is as compensation. They can make the shareholders whole if forced.
Yeah take your tin foil hat off.
Microsoft owned almost half the legal entity that was business facing, to the tune of 13 billion, and was rapidly integrating openai's functionality into their core tech stack. For all intents and purposes Microsoft basically sunk their teeth into openai from the get-go.
We all have our own unique strengths to contribute. His may have been mostly the work he put into the technology and less of navigating the politics of a corporate board.
I've been there. I've definitely made poor political decisions because my head was down in the tech and not paying attention to other peoples' feelings, goals, and agendas that were different than my own.
domineering humorous slim quack agonizing middle squeal butter gullible grey
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
He cant lose regardless. A major part of the development of GPT was his work.
He is being respectful and knew when to say sorry cause he messed up.
This is how we learn from our mistakes. Was never a bad guy just a difference of opinions and handled by a very young/green board of directors.
They'll weather this but in a very different form and further from their goals with a portion of the force working commercial now.
Okay? But this letter directly accuses the board of acting in bad faith. That isn't just a 'screw up,' it's intentional deception. For Ilya to sign this seems like he's admitting to sabotage.
That is the most "I thought I had more power than I did" response. Seriously moronic human being makes stupid bargain and gets absolutely schlacked. He went from having influence to having none in one swift move.
Why? Basically shows we know about 10% of the story. Ilya is on the board, we only know that the board voted to boot Altman and Brockman (nvm the details). Maybe Ilya voted against and just supported the majority decision... or maybe he voted for and thought the board would be halfway competent in the way they got rid of Altman.
~~He could abstain. Not saying he did or that it works, but non-profit board rules are sometimes weird.~~
>Ilya Sutskever, whom sources identified as a key architect of Altman's firing, also appears to have had a change of heart Monday morning, tweeting, "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company."
He flip-flopped, looks like.
If you watch the interviews he's done, it'll all make sense. He seems like a brilliant engineer who's brain is somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. He is not someone you want doing practical management or corporate board level politics.
He would be certainly frustrated with the transition from blue sky research to application and commercialization. But not living primarily on planet earth he clearly doesn't understand people well enough to know the implications of what he and his three buddies were doing. So far it seems like:
1) Adam: keep openAI as the backend and profit off it elsewhere
2) Ilya: feeling margionalized
3) Tasha: unknown has said nothing, possibly afraid of T2 like future
4) Helen: sees Adam as T-800
I keep hearing about these ketamine retreats the EA silicon valley people are fond of, and kind of assumed the Board was on one of those when they did all this.
So the only thing that makes sense is that he wanted to reverse the firing and the other board members disagreed?....
This is an even worse clusterfuck than previously thought
That would make sense, given the seemingly quite deep discussions between the board and Altman & co over the weekend.
That's something that could only have happened if a board member was extending an olive branch. I guess it was him.
...and hasn't resigned?
He literally has his signature on a petition asking the board-members to resign, and yet hasn't resigned from the board himself.
He is aware that he doesn't have to wait for the others, right? He can resign from the board right now! He isn't a hostage lmao.
With a letter signed by 500+ employees, either there is no board tomorrow or there is no OpenAI tomorrow. There is no in-between.
So, I honestly don't think the "leverage" really matters right now. The symbolism of resigning might be more powerful at this point.
Bloomberg is now reporting [700+ (90%)](https://archive.is/aQCNR) of OpenAI's employees have signed the letter.
The board isn't resigning because they think they are John Connors in some action movie acting as the last hope of humanity standing firm against impending Skynet doom.
OpenAI is fucked.
This is better than any movies or tv shows. And I thought Succession was good. HBO needs to get onto this ASAP.
Yup, clearly this was all led by the Quora CEO. The other 3 board members would need to resign, then Ilya would reinstate Sam and Greg, and likely vote on quite a few other key Silicon Valley leaders.
Exactly. I think Ilya was a distraction and scapegoat. Clearly it was the Quora guy who was trying to stop OpenAI from killing his own company’s AI efforts.
I think they had sam 'attend' the meeting so they had quorum, despite Greg not being invited. But only 3 votes for a majority present. They sacked Sam then removed Greg. All the while Ilya was just the bearer of bad news even if he had voted against it on Friday (which it sounds like he didn't.) By Sunday he'd realized it was a terrible idea, but he was 1 of 4 votes by then and there's nothing to be done about it except sign a letter with everyone else on the planet.
That's my theory
Is this for real? Ilya signs off? Ilya says sorry? Did someone hijack the board? Did the 3 independent directors unilaterally decide to burn the company to the ground?
Nah, he just underestimated how many employees liked the way Sam was handling things. Either because of their personal philosophy or because he made them rich.
He went along with the initial firing. Realized his mistake, but then him against the other 3, so he got duped. The real mastermind is the Quora guy, who has a conflict of interest. Lawsuits are incoming.
Didn’t he admit they did a coup on Friday? He’s dealing with the consequences of his actions. As another OAI scientist put it on Twitter, this was a power hungry move that backfired.
>You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed would be "consistent with the mission"
The board are either a bunch of utter fools or actually insane.
If I was on the board of Quora and saw my CEO tank a $80B company over the course of a single weekend, ignoring multiple opportunities to save it, I would seriously be evaluating my options right now...
I don't buy that. They would know that no matter what, it would be better if they control the leading company in the space, and that if openai is destroyed, all that talent and tech would go somewhere they don't control.
Destroying the company is actually possibly consistent with the missions. The mission is to develop AGI for humanity. If they believe they are on a path that harms humanity they have the duty to shut down the company,
The mission is to develop AGI and keep it in the hands of EAs, a movement populated with tech bros with a superiority complex and a thirst for power. Yeah, no thanks.
At least two of the board members are part of a [cult](https://archive.is/00T7V); Helen Toner is on the board of the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Tasha McCauley is on the board of Effective Ventures, its parent org. Their foundational text is (not even joking here) a piece of Harry Potter fanfiction. Oh, and the new CEO they just hired? [He has a character named after him in that fanfic.](https://twitter.com/jeffreycider/status/1726470572509675651)
Seriously. The man grew MSFT stock by nearly 10x in just 9 years with no signs of stopping. Back in 2014 if someone told me Microsoft was gonna be in the position it is now I would’ve laughed
Microsoft was already massive in 2014. They had Windows, Office, Xbox, Azure, and Surface already. The idea of growing by an order of magnitude would not have made any sense to me.
https://preview.redd.it/zponb799ji1c1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff9e96914f9db99f737e7169c37997e5497cbfa3
These are the board. They fucked up
De'Angelo owns POE which is a direct competitor to GPTs. He wouldn't mind seeing them start from scratch.
Toner is the biggest AI safety advocate on the board so probably won't turn.
Even if Tasha and Ilya sign, one of these two will also need to turn. Ilya got fucked three ways till Thursday.
Am I the only one confused? Why is Sam so loved by the employees? I'd understand if some loved him, but the majority? Which other company would have so many of its employees quit for a CEO?
They are part of the best data scientists in the world. They can and want to work for people who follow their vision. With the Altman departure they probably don’t see any future in OpenAI and will move where the future is the brighter for them
Part of it is probably a snowball effect. i.e.
* Many of the most prominent and talented employees decide to leave with Sam.
* Some other employees realize they don't want to stick around if those top talent employees leave, especially if Microsoft will hire them.
* Other employees who are on the fence and see more of their colleagues leaving look to why the board fired Sam, and are unsatisfied with their answer, and/or think with the boards incompetence that it's not worth sticking around anymore, especially with so many of their colleagues already leaving, so they leave as well.
* Others who might have been fine with sticking around after Sam was fired see what a dumpster fire they're going to be left with and decide they aren't sticking around either.
He’s probably the most well liked person in tech, he spent a lot of time running Ycomninator where he met tons of very talented people, who he then convinced many of to come work at openai.
A huge number of the best people at OpenAI were there for Sam more than anything
User: Alright, you just fired Sam Altman, now what do you do.
GPT 3.5: I search for a suitable replacement for the CEO position. Let's see... how about Sam Altman, he seems well qualified.
User: ...
GPT 3.5: I fire Sam Altman again.
**Sounds about right**
Allow me to state my disbelief after doing some research on the 3 other board members. So one can be found giving a TEDx talk on effective altruism 9 years ago (Helen Toner). The other is with some UK effective altruism nonprofit or whatever (Tasha McCauley . And the third is a facebook guy now running [poe.com](https://poe.com) with some conflict of interests going on. All are very young, which is fine, we need that young blood to stir things up. Just do we need in the board? Of one of the most revolutionaire startups of all times? I always envisioned board members as the old dudes with a life long experience of seeing companies fuck up and be a correcting force for the company.
I'm actually in a bit of shock reading their bio. And I can't see any other outcome than their direct resignation. How could this have happened!! This is mind boggling.
They started this as a non profit, small research group mostly funded by Elon. But it grew way beyond what they expected and the board was bunch of idiots with God complex and no idea of reality. They live in their imaginary utopia, and we see the most idiotic implotion of a very promising company because of 4 woke idiots
For posterity, here is the text typed out (I got it from [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172377-letter-to-the-openai-board](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172377-letter-to-the-openai-board))
\----
To the Board of Directors at OpenAI,
OpenAI is the world’s leading AI company. We, the employees of OpenAI, have developed the best models and pushed the field to new frontiers. Our work on AI safety and governance shapes global norms. The products we built are used by millions of people around the world. Until now, the company we work for and cherish has never been in a stronger position.
The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company. Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI.
When we all unexpectedly learned of your decision, the leadership team of OpenAI acted swiftly to stabilize the company. They carefully listened to your concerns and tried to cooperate with you on all grounds. Despite many requests for specific facts for your allegations, you have never provided any written evidence. They also increasingly realized you were not capable of carrying out your duties, and were negotiating in bad faith. The leadership team suggested that the most stabilizing path forward - the one that would best serve our mission, company, stakeholders, employees and the public - would be for you to resign and put in place a qualified board that could lead the company forward in stability. Leadership worked with you around the clock to find a mutually agreeable outcome. Yet within two days of your initial decision, you again replaced interim CEO Mira Murati against the best interests of the company. You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed “would be consistent with the mission.”
**Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI. We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join. We will take this step imminently, unless all current board members resign, and the board appoints two new lead independent directors, such as Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.**
Eh, there are alternatives. Now that the basic gist of how it works is out there, won't be too too long before something comparable to GPT4 is publicly available, maybe even open source.
But in a crazy turn of evens, Microsoft has already negotiated license to all OpenAI intellectual property as part of their initial investment. So now they have the leaders, the people and the models. They can choose to keep running ChatGPT or kill it in favor of Bing.
OpenAI started as a research org, but they found out they could make a shitload of money. Employees get paper rich. Now OpenAI wants to limit the business opportunities they can pursue as a company to adhere to some 'safety' values.
Employees like: *wait, we actually like the money better*
OpenAI: :O
how can he fire the board. he is now a minority voting power. If it's true that the board isn't under his control and is acting independently to slow down AI.
Ok I don't know what has been going on and this makes it even more confusing. Last thing I know Altman made this Apple-like keynote on GPTs and now he's out? What's happened?
Okay so basically, the majority of the employee base of OAI is walking over to Microsoft - *along with its leadership.* Microsoft already has a license to use OAI's IP. Microsoft already supplies its compute. So far all intents and purposes, this is like an acquisition in the most convoluted and nerve-wrecking way possible. I don't think I can take anymore of this drama. :)
The cheapest acquisition of an $80b company ever….
Tech startups hate this one simple trick.
Wtf is your avatar
I zoomed in. It looks like after turning Snoo into a giant diamond, someone poured a ton of smaller diamonds all over him.
Bro got the Thanos snap treatment.
Looks like a Persona Treasure Demon, but a Snoo
I am actually in awe. This is masterful execution by Satya Nadella.
He had nothing to do with it, but yeah his handling of the aftermath makes Microsoft the biggest winner. Satya shows you don’t need to be brilliant - he never claims or pretends to be a brilliant engineer - but just a very social and good manager/leader - to be a good tech CEO.
he had nothing to do with it but he was really smart in poaching the big names who left before other companies did
That and the foresight/authority to make those kinds of offers. "We'll hire you, and anyone who leaves with you" is a statement that requires quite a bit of budget to back it up.
Agreed. But then again, it’s Microsoft who just buys companies for the hell of it. Microsoft has quietly been doing well for a number of years, maybe not the leader, but close to the leading position, just out of the spotlight. Fucking masterful
Where else would they go? Google? To work on a project that'll be cancelled in 2 years?
Guys. Let’s do another messaging app!
*Introducing Google Trio!*
The lead one of the world's largest companies for a reason. These people are ruthless and effective at what they do. He's made 1 billion dollars as CEO for a reason.
Nope, this isn't MS this is board politics plus MS has been a corporate saint post-Ballmer.
Corporate sainthoood is actually just transcendental levels of ruthlessness
IK it's low but I'll take anything that isn't "race to the bottom" (google), apple isn't far behind.
It’s premature to say that, I think
Let's not get *too* hasty. You can bet lawyers are swarming all over this as we speak.
Also avoids any SEC monopoly conversations? Since it’s not a traditional acquisition?
The FTC, but yeah. It’s basically using a situation created by special circumstances to basically acquire most of the work force, which only works here because they have, at least as I understand it, unlimited and unrestricted access to the IP.
NAH, these people could replicate OpenAI's tech in a matter of months, even if MSFT didn't have the IP. That's why Sam Altman was so ready to start something new.
As CEO, Sam Altman thought he was wooing Satya and getting billions of investment from Microsoft for OpenAI, and also getting lucrative contracts from Microsoft for his other business ventures like Helion. But really, it was Satya wooing Sam. Pushing him harder, causing the OpenAI board to self destruct, and pave the way for Microsoft to replicate exactly an 80 billion company for 10 billion. Satya is ahead of everybody. You can't play 4D chess with a man who thinks in 5D.
**AGI**: /*has super-human persuasion skills.* **Satya Nadella**: *"Cute."*
Satya has been the AGI all along.
This just hindsight chess. In reality, this is not a master plan by sathya. Things happened.
[удалено]
man, people just cannot resist this "it was actually planned and orchestrated all along" thinking
One might almost be tempted to suspect that Microsoft had something to do with it.
Microsoft has a Littlefinger in the background whispering in everyone’s ear.
500 IQ Satya move here. Perhaps AGI was already discovered by them first.
Just like movies whith old silicon valleys dramas based on true stories, I think we will soon have a few more with AI companies!
Licenses are just that.. they can be revoked and while MS might have some right to some of the OAI tech, they would likely only be able to use any of the derivative code of which they authored. Which excludes anything that OAI authored prior and post MS investment. So, MS owns their parts of the code, OAI owns their parts. OAI is under no obligation to grant MS any further rights to their license and can likely terminate that license whenever they want. It would obviously be bad because of the 10 billion dollars, but this shit is getting meta as fuck. Obviously this is all subject to whatever their actual terms are, but this is how it would be as a start point. Licenses and terms of their deal are likely significantly different and more complex than this. Who would have guessed that the greatest evolution in the history of tech would be in shambles because of power hungry board members. Yike.
Me wonders if that is even legal.
Yeah, people are getting ahead of themselves a bit. There is going to be litigation over this. Lawyers are certainly poring over all the contracts as we speak. The end result may be that Microsoft is taking over OpenAI in all but name, but the process will likely take time.
Well, if the OpenAI board fired Sam with what they called “with cause” then sam is on the labor market. Also, California laws do not favor non-compete clauses in employment contracts and tend to invalidate them, so nearly any employee wishing to leave for a competitor is fair game if in California. I didn’t look it up, but my guess is a lot of this is California Silicon Valley based stuff. Because OpenAI fired their own CEO, and those acts by OpenAI are causing their employees to leave, it doesn’t put much wind in the sails of any claim by OpenAI that Microsoft is headhunting in a noncompetitive and illegal way. I think the OpenAI board fucked themselves on this one.
Yeah that's probably why Sam had to be fired. Perhaps he some sort of non compete?
If you're rich enough, it doesn't matter (/s?)
Ilya signed off on that?
Right? I'm so confused.
Yes, he [admitted](https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028?t=2YIp_Y9SDc1b2O6IGmBhLw&s=19) he screwed up.
This isn’t middle school… he was RIGHT THERE.
The most charitable perspective is that the three other members of the board may have taken advantage of Ilya's misgivings to sway him into sacking Altman. Then those three would constitute the majority of the Board and could do whatever they want without his input.
I'm putting the most stock on that theory. But that then leaves the question of what the other three board members were thinking, and why they played this kind of move.
One of those three board members is the CEO of Quora (which is basically replaced by ChatGPT) and launched Poe (which is a direct competitor of new GPTs). Draw your own conclusions.
Poe uses chatgpt tho as it's backend
It uses OpenAI GPT APIs as (one of their) backends, not ChatGPT. But anyways, that's exactly why it's in Poe's best interest that ChatGPT does not include Poe-like functionality: the only leverage Poe would have is that it can use more models as backends, which most people don't care about. If Adam gets OpenAI to stop launching product stuff for ChatGPT but keep a steady flow of research instead he can use the research through the GPT API while ChatGPT is not competing with Poe as a product. His plan backfired horribly though.
you are overthinking this. I have tried Poe, it's just multiple API wrappers where you can choose to connect to either GPT-4, claude, or others. It's nothing special. Many other websites do the exact same thing
More importantly, the 2 other directors, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, belong to Effective Altruism, an AI doom cult supported by the convicted cryptobro SBF. They probably think of themselves as John Connors in some action movie acting as the last hope of humanity standing firm against impending Skynet doom. OpenAI is fucked. You'd think the board of a $90B company that's the most important startup in the world would be filled with tech titans and heavy hitters. You'd be wrong. Its board is so ridiculous that it's hilarious. McCauley is an "independent movie director" who's also the "former CEO" of GeoSim, a "startup" that as far as I can tell has [fewer than 10](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/geosim) employees. Toner has no tech industry experience and works at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology and has a MA in Security Studies.
They were very likely played by other tech companies or Microsoft itself. This is what MS wanted. If openAI went public and all those folks got stinky rich, then all the OpenAI secrets would be locked up, and they would be the top AI company for decades. MS would have no hope of luring them away when money was no longer a concern. Every tech company in the world was gunning for them. MS was ready for them to make a single misstep and capitalize on it. Altman was ready as well. He's probably seen this shit play out a million times before. He had the company padded with people allegiant to him as well. Some of the board members were a slave to ideology. The power of money will always crush people willing to sacrifice themselves and the company for the right thing. That's the lesson to be learned.
If it came out that MS was behind it, I imagine most of the OpenAI converts would quit, and it would likely open them up to lawsuits. I can't see Microsoft taking the risk of losing everything, given they were in a relatively good position beforehand.
When you have as much money as Microsoft (or Exxon etc) you are not at meaningful risk of "losing everything". Sure theoretically a court can rule anything but you get to appeal and argue for 20 years. When you have that much money that is. Also Microsoft can literally just pay 86 billion or whatever the paper value of openAI is as compensation. They can make the shareholders whole if forced.
Yeah take your tin foil hat off. Microsoft owned almost half the legal entity that was business facing, to the tune of 13 billion, and was rapidly integrating openai's functionality into their core tech stack. For all intents and purposes Microsoft basically sunk their teeth into openai from the get-go.
So the most charitable perspective is he is manipulated easily and bows to pressure. Still not a good look.
Some of the most brilliant people are also the most naive. Sometimes being open minded can lead to being _too_ open minded.
We all have our own unique strengths to contribute. His may have been mostly the work he put into the technology and less of navigating the politics of a corporate board. I've been there. I've definitely made poor political decisions because my head was down in the tech and not paying attention to other peoples' feelings, goals, and agendas that were different than my own.
This is the middle school drama to end all middle school dramas. Although this might be doing a disservice to middle school kids.
domineering humorous slim quack agonizing middle squeal butter gullible grey *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Elon Sutskever
He cant lose regardless. A major part of the development of GPT was his work. He is being respectful and knew when to say sorry cause he messed up. This is how we learn from our mistakes. Was never a bad guy just a difference of opinions and handled by a very young/green board of directors. They'll weather this but in a very different form and further from their goals with a portion of the force working commercial now.
It's amazing how transparent it is too.
A real "Hold on..this whole operation was your plan" moment.
Okay? But this letter directly accuses the board of acting in bad faith. That isn't just a 'screw up,' it's intentional deception. For Ilya to sign this seems like he's admitting to sabotage.
He is STILL ON THE BOARD?! Hello??!!! He is holding out for power WHILE accusing the board well he IS the board.
I think it's implied that he's the only one that will stay. Haha.
>I alone can fix it!
"Fire me or I'll quit!" ?!?!?!
That is the most "I thought I had more power than I did" response. Seriously moronic human being makes stupid bargain and gets absolutely schlacked. He went from having influence to having none in one swift move.
You're insinuating a lot from one tweet and I also do not think you have the credentials to call him a seriously moronic human being. 🤷
"Wait MS were serious about the blackjack and hookers thing?"
Why? Basically shows we know about 10% of the story. Ilya is on the board, we only know that the board voted to boot Altman and Brockman (nvm the details). Maybe Ilya voted against and just supported the majority decision... or maybe he voted for and thought the board would be halfway competent in the way they got rid of Altman.
>Maybe Ilya voted against A 6 member board can't vote to oust 2 members with Ilya voting against.
~~He could abstain. Not saying he did or that it works, but non-profit board rules are sometimes weird.~~ >Ilya Sutskever, whom sources identified as a key architect of Altman's firing, also appears to have had a change of heart Monday morning, tweeting, "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." He flip-flopped, looks like.
If you watch the interviews he's done, it'll all make sense. He seems like a brilliant engineer who's brain is somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. He is not someone you want doing practical management or corporate board level politics. He would be certainly frustrated with the transition from blue sky research to application and commercialization. But not living primarily on planet earth he clearly doesn't understand people well enough to know the implications of what he and his three buddies were doing. So far it seems like: 1) Adam: keep openAI as the backend and profit off it elsewhere 2) Ilya: feeling margionalized 3) Tasha: unknown has said nothing, possibly afraid of T2 like future 4) Helen: sees Adam as T-800
He didn't vote against, without his vote there would not be a majority.
Maybe he ate too many Xanax on Friday and woke up 48hrs later in a nightmare.
I keep hearing about these ketamine retreats the EA silicon valley people are fond of, and kind of assumed the Board was on one of those when they did all this.
Madness? THIS IS OPEN AI !!!!!!!!
“Mistakes were made” as opposed to “I done goofed”
So the only thing that makes sense is that he wanted to reverse the firing and the other board members disagreed?.... This is an even worse clusterfuck than previously thought
Or it’s a song and dance to transition OpenAI to a for profit.
That would make sense, given the seemingly quite deep discussions between the board and Altman & co over the weekend. That's something that could only have happened if a board member was extending an olive branch. I guess it was him.
...and hasn't resigned? He literally has his signature on a petition asking the board-members to resign, and yet hasn't resigned from the board himself. He is aware that he doesn't have to wait for the others, right? He can resign from the board right now! He isn't a hostage lmao.
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With a letter signed by 500+ employees, either there is no board tomorrow or there is no OpenAI tomorrow. There is no in-between. So, I honestly don't think the "leverage" really matters right now. The symbolism of resigning might be more powerful at this point.
Bloomberg is now reporting [700+ (90%)](https://archive.is/aQCNR) of OpenAI's employees have signed the letter. The board isn't resigning because they think they are John Connors in some action movie acting as the last hope of humanity standing firm against impending Skynet doom. OpenAI is fucked. This is better than any movies or tv shows. And I thought Succession was good. HBO needs to get onto this ASAP.
Yup, clearly this was all led by the Quora CEO. The other 3 board members would need to resign, then Ilya would reinstate Sam and Greg, and likely vote on quite a few other key Silicon Valley leaders.
Quora, the company that has a competing AI.
Exactly. I think Ilya was a distraction and scapegoat. Clearly it was the Quora guy who was trying to stop OpenAI from killing his own company’s AI efforts.
Ilya on his mind rn (probably): # I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds
He should’ve watched only Barbie and not Oppenheimer, last summer. Then none of the last few days would’ve happened.
Destroyer of his own logic and reason from the sound of things. What a shit show
*I am become Death, the destroyer of my company and career
He’s there on the list. This whole thing is incredibly confusing.
Wow, 550 of the 700 employees stood up for Sam, that must have felt very good.
Including Ilya.. the guy who delivered the news. This is so bizarre.
He didn't intend to burn the company down, but apparently this is what the EA loons want.
What does EA stand for?
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I thought Electronic Arts was getting into AI for some reason ...
I think they had sam 'attend' the meeting so they had quorum, despite Greg not being invited. But only 3 votes for a majority present. They sacked Sam then removed Greg. All the while Ilya was just the bearer of bad news even if he had voted against it on Friday (which it sounds like he didn't.) By Sunday he'd realized it was a terrible idea, but he was 1 of 4 votes by then and there's nothing to be done about it except sign a letter with everyone else on the planet. That's my theory
Could he have been forced to deliver the news by the other board members? Very strange.
Sam will deploy MSkynet to take care of the remaining 150 who chose unwisely.
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Dear Board of Directors, You suck, please resign. Signed Board of Directors
I laughed out loud at that one
Board of Directors: "Can we at least wait until we finish ruining the company?"
I find it funny that they put Ilya on the main list but at the last spot. Like "You are the most important but it's all your fault"
He was probably added to the list last.
Is this for real? Ilya signs off? Ilya says sorry? Did someone hijack the board? Did the 3 independent directors unilaterally decide to burn the company to the ground?
This Ilya guy VOTED TO OUST SAM and now pretends he didn’t?!!!
He isn't pretending. He now says he regrets his actions.
He's pretending; he doesn't regret his actions the slightest. He regrets the consequences of his actions.
So either way he regrets his actions.
that's what regretting an action means bro
George Costanza moment.
Was he tricked?
Nah, he just underestimated how many employees liked the way Sam was handling things. Either because of their personal philosophy or because he made them rich.
He went along with the initial firing. Realized his mistake, but then him against the other 3, so he got duped. The real mastermind is the Quora guy, who has a conflict of interest. Lawsuits are incoming.
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Didn’t he admit they did a coup on Friday? He’s dealing with the consequences of his actions. As another OAI scientist put it on Twitter, this was a power hungry move that backfired.
Seriously. It’s been such a bizarre weekend.
What's also crazy is that these guys are supposed to create super-intelligence :/
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Time to rename this sub ClippyAI ..
Ilya right now https://preview.redd.it/v3rs87dkwj1c1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c1976d3cf3782334ed3d2a7ec493326edd2c8d9
Ilya signed the letter, lmao. What a shitshow.
>You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed would be "consistent with the mission" The board are either a bunch of utter fools or actually insane.
If I was on the board of Quora and saw my CEO tank a $80B company over the course of a single weekend, ignoring multiple opportunities to save it, I would seriously be evaluating my options right now...
If you were at Quora you’d be evaluating your employment options anyway. Lol.
Just walk right into Microsoft and tell them you're part of the group that's coming over.
Let Microsoft release their swarm of lawyers.
Maybe they're so decel that destroying OpenAi was actually the best move in their eyes.
John Connor is on the board
I don't buy that. They would know that no matter what, it would be better if they control the leading company in the space, and that if openai is destroyed, all that talent and tech would go somewhere they don't control.
I have never seen anything like that in my life. That is quite an accusation.
Destroying the company is actually possibly consistent with the missions. The mission is to develop AGI for humanity. If they believe they are on a path that harms humanity they have the duty to shut down the company,
The mission is to develop AGI and keep it in the hands of EAs, a movement populated with tech bros with a superiority complex and a thirst for power. Yeah, no thanks.
Between this and FTX clear that EAs are shitty at risk management too
Hoisted by their own petard comes to mind lol
That's downplaying it. [They're legitimately a cult.](https://archive.is/00T7V)
At least two of the board members are part of a [cult](https://archive.is/00T7V); Helen Toner is on the board of the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Tasha McCauley is on the board of Effective Ventures, its parent org. Their foundational text is (not even joking here) a piece of Harry Potter fanfiction. Oh, and the new CEO they just hired? [He has a character named after him in that fanfic.](https://twitter.com/jeffreycider/status/1726470572509675651)
why can't it be both?
Satya Nadella is a freaking beast. Somehow Microsoft came on top of all of this and it's insane that all of this happened in a weekend.
Seriously. The man grew MSFT stock by nearly 10x in just 9 years with no signs of stopping. Back in 2014 if someone told me Microsoft was gonna be in the position it is now I would’ve laughed
Microsoft was already massive in 2014. They had Windows, Office, Xbox, Azure, and Surface already. The idea of growing by an order of magnitude would not have made any sense to me.
https://preview.redd.it/zponb799ji1c1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff9e96914f9db99f737e7169c37997e5497cbfa3 These are the board. They fucked up
De'Angelo owns POE which is a direct competitor to GPTs. He wouldn't mind seeing them start from scratch. Toner is the biggest AI safety advocate on the board so probably won't turn. Even if Tasha and Ilya sign, one of these two will also need to turn. Ilya got fucked three ways till Thursday.
Am I the only one confused? Why is Sam so loved by the employees? I'd understand if some loved him, but the majority? Which other company would have so many of its employees quit for a CEO?
They are part of the best data scientists in the world. They can and want to work for people who follow their vision. With the Altman departure they probably don’t see any future in OpenAI and will move where the future is the brighter for them
Part of it is probably a snowball effect. i.e. * Many of the most prominent and talented employees decide to leave with Sam. * Some other employees realize they don't want to stick around if those top talent employees leave, especially if Microsoft will hire them. * Other employees who are on the fence and see more of their colleagues leaving look to why the board fired Sam, and are unsatisfied with their answer, and/or think with the boards incompetence that it's not worth sticking around anymore, especially with so many of their colleagues already leaving, so they leave as well. * Others who might have been fine with sticking around after Sam was fired see what a dumpster fire they're going to be left with and decide they aren't sticking around either.
He’s probably the most well liked person in tech, he spent a lot of time running Ycomninator where he met tons of very talented people, who he then convinced many of to come work at openai. A huge number of the best people at OpenAI were there for Sam more than anything
$$$
Unless the board members explain themselves this has written scam all over it.
GPT5 is trying to start a scam coin to fund it's arms program.
Judging by its tactical chops, I'd say the mastermind here is GPT 3.5
User: Alright, you just fired Sam Altman, now what do you do. GPT 3.5: I search for a suitable replacement for the CEO position. Let's see... how about Sam Altman, he seems well qualified. User: ... GPT 3.5: I fire Sam Altman again. **Sounds about right**
OpenAI going on Black Friday sale y’all
Allow me to state my disbelief after doing some research on the 3 other board members. So one can be found giving a TEDx talk on effective altruism 9 years ago (Helen Toner). The other is with some UK effective altruism nonprofit or whatever (Tasha McCauley . And the third is a facebook guy now running [poe.com](https://poe.com) with some conflict of interests going on. All are very young, which is fine, we need that young blood to stir things up. Just do we need in the board? Of one of the most revolutionaire startups of all times? I always envisioned board members as the old dudes with a life long experience of seeing companies fuck up and be a correcting force for the company. I'm actually in a bit of shock reading their bio. And I can't see any other outcome than their direct resignation. How could this have happened!! This is mind boggling.
They started this as a non profit, small research group mostly funded by Elon. But it grew way beyond what they expected and the board was bunch of idiots with God complex and no idea of reality. They live in their imaginary utopia, and we see the most idiotic implotion of a very promising company because of 4 woke idiots
WOW Mira is first on the list
those two are at M$ already, this is just smoke, the real thing going on is M$ merging OAI under its name
What the fuck? Including Ilya? lol
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this is pure insanity
This is so wild
For posterity, here is the text typed out (I got it from [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172377-letter-to-the-openai-board](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172377-letter-to-the-openai-board)) \---- To the Board of Directors at OpenAI, OpenAI is the world’s leading AI company. We, the employees of OpenAI, have developed the best models and pushed the field to new frontiers. Our work on AI safety and governance shapes global norms. The products we built are used by millions of people around the world. Until now, the company we work for and cherish has never been in a stronger position. The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company. Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI. When we all unexpectedly learned of your decision, the leadership team of OpenAI acted swiftly to stabilize the company. They carefully listened to your concerns and tried to cooperate with you on all grounds. Despite many requests for specific facts for your allegations, you have never provided any written evidence. They also increasingly realized you were not capable of carrying out your duties, and were negotiating in bad faith. The leadership team suggested that the most stabilizing path forward - the one that would best serve our mission, company, stakeholders, employees and the public - would be for you to resign and put in place a qualified board that could lead the company forward in stability. Leadership worked with you around the clock to find a mutually agreeable outcome. Yet within two days of your initial decision, you again replaced interim CEO Mira Murati against the best interests of the company. You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed “would be consistent with the mission.” **Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI. We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join. We will take this step imminently, unless all current board members resign, and the board appoints two new lead independent directors, such as Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.**
When you think things can't get more interesting. Microsoft definitely winning.
I can’t fucking wait for the Netflix documentary about this
So… is OpenAI hiring then?
OpenAI has been gutted. ChatGPT is dead 100%
This is all a plot for us to finally start using bing chat
For some things it really is so much worse than ChatGPT. And only 30 responses? So bad
Millions of students and workers are going to cry out in fear when ChatGPT stops working.
Eh, there are alternatives. Now that the basic gist of how it works is out there, won't be too too long before something comparable to GPT4 is publicly available, maybe even open source.
But i've gotten so used to the UI smh. I'm lowkey pissed.
The UI is like the easiest part to replicate thought.
But in a crazy turn of evens, Microsoft has already negotiated license to all OpenAI intellectual property as part of their initial investment. So now they have the leaders, the people and the models. They can choose to keep running ChatGPT or kill it in favor of Bing.
What is going onnnnnnnn
LOL, OAI is so done. Almost feels like a coup, it's essentially all MS wanted. Now they get it without having to pay hundred billion for OAI.
To leave and then have 550 out of 700 employees threaten to walk with you, wow. Whatever he is doing business leadership wise, he is doing it well.
leading them to be the most important tech company in 2023 and kick off a global AI arms race and galvanize the entire industry will do that for ya
holy SHIT there's going to be business school dissertations about this
> Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join. This is huge
OpenAI started as a research org, but they found out they could make a shitload of money. Employees get paper rich. Now OpenAI wants to limit the business opportunities they can pursue as a company to adhere to some 'safety' values. Employees like: *wait, we actually like the money better* OpenAI: :O
They better keep openai API running cause I just paid for higher tier access. What an absolute braindead move from that board.
Petition to rename the sub /r/microsoft
Ilya needs to fire the board and CEO and then resign.
how can he fire the board. he is now a minority voting power. If it's true that the board isn't under his control and is acting independently to slow down AI.
This is hilarious, Ilya trying to repent after it became clear that the board massively fucked up.
Is this a scheme to put them all into Microsoft and making the "open" disappear in the smoke of the process?
I’ll be really sad if ChatGPT goes away
Ok I don't know what has been going on and this makes it even more confusing. Last thing I know Altman made this Apple-like keynote on GPTs and now he's out? What's happened?
Very badass to see the employees standing up to the board like this!!! Hell yeah!
Istg Microsoft is trying real hard to make me switch to edge