I don't buy it. If you listen to Sam and Greg, they want to change the world and bring us into a world of abundance that everyone can participate in. They were the ideators of this "awkward non-profit owning a for-profit company".
Microsoft is setup to create shareholder value. That's it.
Both of them will eventually find it moot to advance tech so a few folks get richer.
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Sam's history is full of the worst parts of venture capital and startup mindset. He's only an idealist so far as he's good at selling the ideal outcome and drowning out any criticism.
Yeah, let's not forget for example his pyramid scam Worldcon, which attempts to scam people of their biometric info for a few bucks, and is aimed at the poorest underdeveloped countries. "Idealist". Aha, right.
I didn't say that all trade is positive-sum. I said that some is.
You're arguing a straw man. Which means your reading comprehension is bad or you're intentionally mudding the waters. Either way, I think we're good here.
Free exchange obviously and provably is, but that's not _quite_ what's going on. I see a rapid trend towards regulatory capture, monopolization and setting up to siphon out money. All from the same few actors. And if history around tech hype serves us well, then we should be wary of a large, inflated bubble that is going to burst eventually, even if useful things are created meanwhile.
I think that if Sam had followed the typical VC/Startup playbook (and he even wrote one), he never would have joined OpenAI, a nonprofit based on totally unproven tech at the time. He was already quite rich and powerful from YC, and decided to take a big risk on AI. I think there was at least some genuine idealism involved.
I think it's quite a stretch to say he was "powerful". Sure he had some influence but he was never on anyone's list of _somebodies_ in Silicon Valley. My personal opinion is that he really really really wants to be seen as a Steve Jobs / Elon Musk type character and he saw OpenAI as a great opportunity since he didn't have any of his own ideas.
He was powerful enough to get put on the board of OpenAI. But I agree that he wants to be a "great" person, above Steve Jobs and Musk and the rest, and he sees AGI as the path to get there. He's not really altruistic, but he's also not purely money-oriented as the original comment seemed to suggest.
You think the guy is gonna be a regular c suite exec?
They are going to be a special group with special rules. This is so they can build off the existing code base. Only msft has that openai ip.
If they go to Google or start their own thing it's rewrite or work off someone else's painting. Not to mention building out compute infrastructure.
Big loss of time. Go to msft, get special status, maybe even an exit clause with IP included. Easy win. Was always gonna be msft if not openai negotiated return. I just didn't realize that till satya threw them the offer that worked.
These guys didn't sign up to be cogs. Satya respects them.
MS are minority shareholders in Open AI. What stupid agreements did OpenAI sign to give them IP rights, or are you just making things up? Maybe I should ping all the tech companies I own shares in to get them to send me their IP too
Gpt4 is included in bing man... Bing creative mode and balanced mode both.
This is widely known. The investment included access to openai technology for integration in msft services.
Its not a traditional arrangement. This is also widely known. Its a complicated investment with a profitability sunset triggering return of equity to the nonprofit. Also included is technology transfer as long as the sunset doesn't trigger.
This is why Ilya felt comfortable to do it. He did many interviews where he explained this.
None of what you said implies they have current legal access to the source/IP for GPT4.
The original 2019 deal was described as:
> Microsoft and OpenAI will jointly build new Azure AI supercomputing technologies
> OpenAI will port its services to run on Microsoft Azure, which it will use to create new AI technologies and deliver on the promise of artificial general intelligence
> Microsoft will become OpenAI’s preferred partner for commercializing new AI technologies
The $10 billion deal was probably not making a ton of money for MSFT as it was 75% percent of profits, which are easy to get rid of, until they get 49% of the company.
Can you explain why MSFT would spend $10 B for either of these things if they just got OpenAI’s IP?
Its obvious that they have to redo less of the stack if the go to msft. At the very least, they already wrote everything to scale with azure.
With respect to IP... My comment was mostly suggesting they could enjoy privaledge to leave msft at some point in the future with IP with them.
How much of the source do they get to avoid rewriting on day 1 at msft? No idea. Could be all of it... But again... At least they already scaled into azure compute architecture and don't have to reinvent the wheel. That's not a small thing.
Not really debating it further. Seems really obvious to me that broadly speaking, for all kinds of reasons, probably access to source inckuded, they will be able to get up to speed substantially faster at msft vs anywhere else.
It's too speculative to be worse discussing in depth. We don't have enough details, but my broader assertion is more or less defensible imo. Others might disagree. Not worth a debate imo.
(edit: 'perpetual license to openai ip short of agi'
Not sure of the details. This is was I see being written.
Yeah but I have access to various APIs, it doesn't mean I own them or the IP behind them. Does tech transfer really mean MSFT can launch their own competitor off the back of OpenAI's tech? If Altman permitted such ownership no investors should touch him with a barge pole.
Its speculative. Others might disagree. I spoke to this in a comment above.
Your skepticsm seems reasonable to me, but I think my broader point is defensible, though I just don't really care to go further with it. Now I'm reading 85 percent of them have revolted lol.
Maybe we meet again in the other post.
(edit: 'perpetual license to openai ip short of agi'
Not sure of the details. This is was I see being written.
He needs money to do big things and execute. He gets high on making big stuff happen.
So many Altman haters every way I turn. He turned down ownership in a now 90 billion dollar company... The guy is busted up from success and now that's all he digs. Money is for idiots.
Folks need to read the room. Once you hit a couple hundred mil net worth only a fool cares about stacking on more bills. That's just a side affect of tap dancing to work... Jobs was worth what? 2 billion?
Who think satya cares about money... Get real. He wants the most he can get so his foundation when he retires can make big changes and do Bill Gates stuff.
This place is just as bad as reddit sometimes. No offense to anyone in particular. Some of these youngsters need to comment less and read a few more ceo bio's... Or just go watch YouTube interviews from the finance guy... Whatshisname leveraged buyout wizard whitehair with a JD who sits on billions but realized he preferred to be a journalist sometimes before he kicks it.
They execute. Objectives. Changing stuff. It's addictive. Ask me how I know.
(edit: big shot Wendy's night shift manager. When you roll up at 2am our ice-cream machine was never being cleaned, that'll be 89 cents please. Enjoy your ice-cream sir/ma'am.
You never go back. I changed the world for the better)
Mmm... I guess for me pursuit of power as a choice of language carries a certain negative connotation.
In semantic terms I agree.
The negative connotation is the baggage I bring. I recind my implied critism. Pursuit of power is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps I need to think on this.
I am. In fact the goals of any for-profit company is the profit. If a CEO doesn't align with that goal in mind, they get replaced. That's non-negotiable. A for-profit company without profit is a dead company.
The broader point is that considering short term personal financial gain is beneath an exec at Satya's level.
He has a responsibility to do more than just maximize value though. Corporate values are a real thing and msft has pretty clearly integrated them in various ways for a long time.
They pledged to carbon capture all carbon going back to their founding... For example. What does that have to do with profit? Nada... Outside of making folkes feel less climate guilt when they buy a share. Now that... Very clever for profit.
> If you listen to Sam and Greg, they want to change the world and bring us into a world of abundance that everyone can participate in.
Sam is a serial startup (co)founder who has spent additional time at YC -- in the startup world, that kind of talk is so common as to be a stereotype. It's a good way to get people who do care about that kind of stuff to accept equity in a firm that is statistically likely to fail (or, in OpenAI's case, explicitly warns investors that they should not expect profit and treat investments as donations) as compensation when they could earn greater secure compensation from more established firms. It's a great sales pitch, even when there is no truth behind it.
The world, in general, makes so dramatically much more sense if you just completely ignore everything that everybody says, and instead simply look at the actions of people/organizations/nations, and form your own opinions based upon that. This is even more true in modern times when framing things in the 'right way' (even if completely insincerely) can have a major impact on your ventures, funding/investment availability, and more.
Basically what you see these days is PR teams together with legal teams acting like individual that hired them. There are exceptions, but they are outliers in say Trump style, not these billionaires. Same, heck even more for politics.
It can be easily transferred into personal or professional relationships. For me at least, this analysis works 100% of the time when for example rest of friends or family struggle hard to understand actions of some individuals. Just point them to their previous actions and see the consistency emerging. This is how you can easily work with various people if you are smart but lack social skills, just observe actions and ignore blah.
People simply don't change, they may reflect change in their environment but thats it. Unless we talk about 2 decades+ since last encounter, but even then it may be just more polished PR.
And if you buy those flowery words from a non-technical startup founder, the same one behind fucking Worldcoin, I've got a few bridges to offload quick and on the cheap.
I say this without having really looked into what their latest stance is, but did the fame and money since forming OpenAI perhaps change their initial tune?
sam wants to change the world by increasing the amount of transferable money that goes directly into his pocket using the most efficient means possible
Yeah I'm surprised about Sam joining MS based on he usually says. But on the other hand, that's a pretty neat move - you fire me - now I own you (simplification, maybe).
Microsoft created shareholder value by selling stuff people like. Many techies argue it was the exact wrong thing they were selling and the world would be a better place if MSFT followed rather than led - but there is no arguing that people wanted and used what they were selling. Also it's hard to find a company with more shareholders than MSFT.
Microsoft is setup to create shareholder value. That's it. Both of them will eventually find it moot to advance tech so a few folks get richer.