Remember all those Apple and Amazon employees who signed a letter that they're not going back to the office? Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance

Make no mistake, if Microsoft is matching $10M PPU's with $10M Microsoft RSUs vesting over 4 years, every single employee will join. But I kind of doubt that this is their plan

> Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance

That doesn't tell you whether it was the numerator or the denominator that changed.

It's at least the denominator and likely both. I personally know a non-zero number of people formerly there who found a different job or retired when Apple insisted on everyone returning to the office.

> Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance

Do you have a source for this? At other tech companies I'm aware of, the numbers are still much lower than 100%, even after threats of performance impact.

That kind of compensation skew will case ripples in the company. It's possible that OpenAI is worth it, but it is a big gamble by Microsoft.

I think that is approximately L70 comp.

Oh yes, it's going to create waves. People who've had compensation stagnation at Microsoft, reduced bonuses, "belt tightening" now see that "well, we're willing to throw stupid amounts of money at those people over there, just not you".

Isn't it like that at any company?

Yeah but in these kinds of big companies there are supposedly compensation "bands" by technical level. When salaries within each band are very different, it can be an impediment to talent mobility within the company.

That's capitalism WAI.

People in stagnant careers signal to their employers that they don't need to do anything at all to retain them.

People at a hot startup have all the options in the world.

Compensation isn't about what's fair at all. It's supply and demand.

You want to make more money? Make yourself in shorter supply and generate more demand for your service.

The CTO of Microsoft tweeted this morning that they would hire any OpenAI employees who wanted to join MS with commensurate pay. For whatever that’s worth.

Do you have a link ;-)

Déjà vu

Derp

> Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance

Bit of a flaw in your logic there ;-)

There was no significant uptake on any letter at Apple.

One reason is that retaliation is very possible. The opacity of the executive team was not a feature of Steve Jobs’s Apple, but the Time Cook-era opaqueness combines poorly withthe silo’d, top down nature of Apple’s management which _was_ inherited from Steve Jobs.

The opaqueness, I think, is a result of Tim Cook integrating the retail and corporate sides of the company; retail salespeople are treated better, but software engineers are treated a little more like retail salespeople.

Since the pandemic, Apple execs have seemed to be isolated in a bubble and are not listening to the rank and file anymore. The people they do listen to seem to be out of touch.

Are those PPUs really worth anything?

As others have pointed out, it's easier to sign a letter than actually go through with it. Besides that, wasn't there some employees who said something similar on Friday when this happened?

This is simply a matter of momentum. If enough of the signatories follow through more will cross the bridge until there are too few people left to keep it going and then there will be an avalanche. It all depends on the size of the initial wave and the kind of follow on. If that stops at 200 people leaving it will probably stay like that, if that number is 300 or even 400 out of the 700 then OpenAI will be dead because the remainder will move as well.

How reliable is this information, could it be a deliberate rumor spread by interested parties?

I agree that it is surprising that the first big whiff of collective bargaining that we see in Big Tech is “let’s save this asshole CEO (who would probably try to bust any formal unionization),”[1] rather than trying to safeguard the workers in the industry as a whole. But I just attribute that to Silicon Valley being this weird hero-worship-libertarian-fantasy cosplay rather than outright conspiracy.

[1] Just to clarify, I don't know Sam and I am taking the usual labor viewpoint that most CEOs, in order to become CEOs, had to be a certain sort of asshole who would be likely to do other such asshole things. There are some indications that this sort of assholery is what he was fired for but it's kinda hard to read between the lines here.

Everything about this post is spot-on. The CEO got ousted because he lied to the board and went against the company's mission to make safe AGI. He tried to milk OpenAI for money and personal gain, and the board actually did something to stop it.

The downvotes here are pretty irrational. But that's the defining feature of class warfare: we're all closer to homelessness than a billion dollars, but we've been conditioned to believe the opposite.

I don't doubt that a lot will, but it's also easy to sign a letter.

[unpopular comment removed]

At the point where the majority of employees have signed it I imagine it's much easier. Might even get a bit weird if you're one of a few holdouts

e: for what it's worth I thought it was a reasonable discussion point, not sure why you got downvoted on that one :(

It was a risky gambit for the first half of the signers. Was it not?

I have no idea what the process was for gathering the signatures, but one way to solve this problem is a mutual confidentiality pact that goes away with enough momentum. Ask people if they're willing to sign, but if you can't get 50% of the people to sign the document and all the signatures go away.

Similar things are done when doing anonymous 360 surveys in the workplace. If not enough people in a certain pool respond, the feedback doesn't get shared.

Oh aye for sure - All unions are risky to start with, that's why you gotta keep them quiet until you have overwhelming support

Is it really burning a bridge though if >90% of your coworkers (and even bosses) agree?

Lot harder for the first N employees at the front of the line.

Unless they promised to withhold the letter until 50% signed.

Also I have enough savings and my skills are in demand enough that I wouldn’t consider signing such a letter much of a risk. The researchers at openAI are likely a good deal more in demand than I am.

While the financial future is significantly less certain than it was a week ago, many of those employees have RSU-equivalents potentially worth FU money. Even if you are going to land on your feet, it is still making a statement to walk away from that payday.

If you believe that your profit share is going to be worth much much more with the current board gone, then threatening to walk away to force them to resign isn’t really walking away from much.

Was your comment unpopular, or wrong?

They didn't say they were going to Microsoft, as far as I can tell. I presume many can get golden offers anywhere including academia and other institutions with stronger nonprofit governance track record.

Literally says "join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary"

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/technology/le...

what this have to do with their willingness to join Microsoft?!?

this only signals desire to leave openai. nothing else.

This is a direct quote from the letter:

>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 OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.

It does suggest more than their willingness to leave.

thanks. couldn't have guessed that from the comment alone. not like I'm following this fabricated soap opera very close

I think peer pressure also plays a part. You want to be part of the majority in case things change, Sam comes back etc.

Actually going is a whole different thing. Why not go to Google or FB or Anthropic if you’re quitting anyway, and they can match the offer.

> they will consider changing jobs.

Hmmmm. The stiff resolve of a spaghetti noodle. I "consider" changing jobs literally every single day.