What's wrong with OpenAI working conditions?

Well, someone committed suicide and they also went against the company by challenging them publicly. A company that makes a truckload of money. Shouldn't an investigation be in order?

I did a quick sketch of premises, no warranty :) Curious for your thoughts, tl;dr: imho there doesn't seem to be a reason to investigate OpenAI's working conditions.

- Person A died

- Person A used to work for company X

- Person A spoke negatively about company X's choice in training data sourcing

- Company X has a lot of money

- Law enforcement should investigate Company X workplace conditions

I think the missing piece is some sort of evidence Company X was involved, or finding some tangible evidence that someone who committed suicide was materially, and thus criminally, caused by workplace conditions at a job they left a while ago. (this is a pretty high bar, a civil suit has ~0 bar and would be easier, but law enforcement isn't responsible for helping with those)

The public funds uninterested cross-discipline teams of highly trained professionals to crosscheck eachother on ex. cause of death, and without any evidence from that process indicating a possiblity someone other than the decedant was involved...it appears to be a leap.

they get paid a ludicrous amount. the status of their working conditions are inconsequential.

No, it’s really not.

Not true. Only the highest level researchers get paid a ludicrous amount. Most engineers at OpenAI in SF would get paid about 300k which can barely afford the taxes and rent in SF.

Is that really true? I saw some one-bedroom apartments there for $3500 -- expensive but even with that, 300K is a decent amoount. According to an online tax calculator, the take home pay is 185,000 or 15.4K per month.

Even if you spend a bit and spend another 3K per month on stuff like food, bills, and some spending money, that's still almost 9K that you can save per month. Sounds VERY lavish to me. So lavish that in 15 years of work you could save up 1.6 million, buy a cheap house somewhere (or already have one from buying it while working there) for $500K and have 1.1 million to live frugally on and just work on side projects for a little extra cash.

The strange thing about this retirement plan is that it assumes you will spend 15 years living somewhere, and then one day just walk away from all the social ties you've made during that period, during the prime of your life. I suppose there are people who could probably do this, but for most folks, this is not going to be a joyful path.

Well, the point was not the plan, but the ludicrous amount of money you still get and could still use to live there if you wish.

The people tagging data are making much less.

Bro. $300k puts them into the top 2% of income in the US. It's expensive but not a struggle by any means.

But not for the Bay Area. As of November 2024, the median price of a home in the Bay Area is around $1,316,500.

On a 3:1 debt to income ratio, I'd put median income for the area for those who can afford to buy a home there is approx $350K (80% financing on median home price).

300k is a lot of money. You can afford to live in SF quite comfortably on that. And save to buy a house and raise kids.

Wildly incorrect. $300k will let you live comfortably in SF, without roommates.

The fact that some people cannot live alone on that salary in SF does not mean most people cannot. I make considerably less than that and I could make it work. I wouldn't, because that would destroy my ability to save anything, but I could do it.