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.
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.
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.
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...