Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

Re:Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft by jacquesm on Monday November 20, 2023 @04:17AM (#38345254)

As much as I dislike Microsoft: they played this exactly right. No boardseat: no culpability or conflict of interest, catch the falling pieces and reposition themselves stronger. What makes you say they didn't anticipate the problem? If they had anticipated it I don't see what else they could have done without making themselves part of the problem.

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Re:Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft by rjtavares on Monday November 20, 2023 @04:35AM (#38345447)

I based that opinion on two news that came out:

1. When they invested in Open AI it had a more mature board (in particular Reid Hoffman) and afterwards they lost a few members without replacing them. That was probably something Microsoft could have influenced without making themselves part of the problem.

2. They received a call one minute before the decision was made public. That shouldn't happen to a partner that owns 49% of the company you just fired a CEO from.

Sources:

1 - https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board

2 - https://www.axios.com/2023/11/17/microsoft-openai-sam-altman...

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Re:Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft by jacquesm on Monday November 20, 2023 @04:45AM (#38345546)

Yes, but both of those are not Microsoft's doing but the OpenAI board's doing. You don't just get to name someone to a board without the board to agree to it and normally this happens as a condition of for instance an investment or partnership.

Nadella was rightly furious about this, the tail wagged the dog there. And this isn't over yet: you can expect a lot of change on the OpenAI side.

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Re:Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft by rjtavares on Monday November 20, 2023 @05:31AM (#38345981)

Buying 49% of a company is a risky deal. You better make sure the other 51% have good governance.

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Re:Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft by jacquesm on Monday November 20, 2023 @09:23AM (#38348647)

Yes, that probably was a mistake, it should have come with more protections. But I haven't seen any documents on the governance other than what is in the media now and there is a fair chance that MS did have various protections but that the board simply ignored those.

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Re:Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft by tonyedgecombe on Monday November 20, 2023 @05:38AM (#38346031)

[delayed]

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Re:Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft by jacquesm on Monday November 20, 2023 @12:04PM (#38350609)

I can't see it in any other way.

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