Another interpretation: those closest to the internal workings of the business believe that a certain person is best capable of managing the business. Turns out that person is also who the investors believe in. So rather than fealty to a person, they are simply voting (with their feet apparently) against the board.
Have you _seen_ the bizarre behaviour that's occurring on twitter? Retweeing heart emojis, making weird declarations of faith, acting in lockstep? They're 100% swearing fealty and it's incredibly weird.
“Sam isn’t important. Employees are weirdos. The board is just fine. Everyone calm down.”
That’s more wierd than anything happening on Twitter.
Those staff usually have their private champions within the company - usually technically focussed project managers who can run interference against the commercial side - but nod along with the CEO who they view as the ugly necessity of having to have a 'business guy.'
They are sending messages of unity, not fealty to Sam Altman.
Working together brought them to the top of the world both in term of research and product. This is a dream come true.
What would surprise me is that they wouldn't do everything they can to avoid breaking their team.
These are meant to be top-tier researchers, you'd think they'd put their thoughts in their own words. That too would avoid uncertainty and make their position easier to understand.
Just retweeting a heart emoji because their dear leader (lol) did it is... odd, to me. Unless it's specifically intended to send the message that they'll literally do whatever he tells them to do. Which is about a thousand times weirder.
The investment goes to zero anyway without talent.
I think you can assume that there's a large pool of talent that would love to work at OpenAI, they were just turned off by the ... vibes ... coming from the e/acc locksteppy types.
It may be very easy to re-hire talent that's actually a lot smarter, if a bit less 'mission focussed.'
So they just need to hire some Gen Z [1], not to actually make AI technology but to make "good vibes"
[1] https://nypost.com/2023/11/18/lifestyle/gen-z-workers-say-th...
>>I think you can assume that there's a large pool of talent
Why would we assume that? Every company in the US currently is complaining endlessly about the lack of talent, in IT especially I see posts from hiring managers being unable to find tech talent, and the fact that several companies are making very aggressive plays at getting OpenAI worker right now tells me there is not infact a "large pool of talent" that will just back fill all of these roles.
Hasn't the sector been aggressively laying off for the past 6 months? I mean, there have been many many many posts about it here.
Alot of Tech companies have been laying off alot of support staff in HR, Recruitment, Sales, and other business functions
and yes some Technical roles as well, but dont think because you see "Google Lays of X,000 employees" means they just laid off that many AI Researchers, programmers, etc...
Say, what agenda are you trying to push, spaceman? This is the second comment of yours in this thread trying to make it seem like everyone at OpenAI is irreplaceable, so maybe you missed the hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs this year in the US.
If you know where to find a hundred or so people of the caliber that OpenAI has managed to attract so far you should get into the recruiting business pronto because you could make a few million easily.
This field is small and nascent enough that there are really only a small number of people who can build something like GPT-4.
> Investors like success and returns but they don't like companies where all the employees have basically sworn out an oath of fealty to the CEO, as it means they (the investors) have basically no control over anything.
Investors love such companies. I, as an investor would love such a company, as long as I was sure that the CEO would stay. Investors tend to not have control over much of anything anyway unless they have a board seat. Other than that it's a shareholder meeting once per year where you get to sign off on the actions of the execs for the preceding year. But the better interpretation is that the people there have said "we are not loyal to the board" rather than that they are more loyal to Altman, that only goes for those that will follow him wherever he goes.
The best time for an investor to influence things is when you come on board. The best way for an investor to continue to be able to influence things is to have a controlling interest or very good relations with enough of the stockholders to effectively have a controlling interest.
As an investor you have no way of obtaining that surety. So, you would not love this company.
> But the better interpretation is that the people there have said "we are not loyal to the board" rather than that they are more loyal to Altman
Dude they're retweeting heart emojis and carrying water in _the most disturbing_ fashion on twitter. They're 100% declaring that they're his personal army, ride or die. I don't know how you aren't seeing this. It's completely abnormal behaviour for adults.
To me it's the 100% committed 'vibe' they're giving off. It's weird. It's not how staff, especially technical/researchers (who usually bicker like anything over the most trivial of differences) behave.
Anyone who's managed a big research team knows that competing rivalries and internecine warfare is the order of the day. Literal slapfights have broken out over whether big or little endian encoding will be more efficient for any given scenario, for example.
Oh yeah I think Sam is sleazier than most people seem to think. I also don’t think he’s in the right because the board has been quiet. The whole thing is insular and one sided. Everything they’re doing/saying is to try and control the board. That is off-putting because it’s detrimental to the board’s intent. I’m sure they’re all very nice people and hard workers.
I don't know enough about Sam or the board at all, so curious as to reasons why he might be sleazy/sneaky.
The board being quiet, in my opinion, is not doing them any favors!
The board being quiet is adult behaviour. Release a discreet and generic press release then direct all further enquiries to the lawyers. That's how things should be done.
The frenzy of reporting and contradictory articles and froth and spin that's coming from the other side makes them look deranged, IMHO. It's incredibly childish and just makes it look like they have tentacles everywhere that they can drag these weird articles out of so many different outlets. It's not a good look unless you're really trying to look like HYDRA.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/1033862/op...
@OpenAI We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.
We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.
Objectively not true. Employees were quiet on Friday. It was after Ilya told employees that Altman was fired partly because he tasked two people with the same job, that they then organized.
Emmett Shear.
Altman won't be back.
Investors like success and returns but they don't like companies where all the employees have basically sworn out an oath of fealty to the CEO, as it means they (the investors) have basically no control over anything.