Technology

I was once employed by a startup that was about to go under, but got a last minute acquisition offer. The CEO pulled me aside at one point and made an observation I’ve never forgotten.

He said “You know, when it looked like the company was going to be a total loss, everyone was really great about it. The VCs told me not to be discouraged, that we’d given it our all. No bitterness or blaming at all. But once the buyout offer was on the table, everyone’s knives came out. Everyone wanted to take the money from everyone else, and get away with as much as they could even if it meant shafting literally everyone else. You’d think people would be at their worst in a time of deprivation but it’s when there’s something to be had that people really show their worst.”

OpenAI is a golden goose right now. I’m not surprised if there’s a lot of knifing happening in its vicinity.

This is pretty wild. Considering the ethical implications of AI as an aside, what this does is effectively shatter the silo OpenAI had around their product. These are the core people who brought the vision into life. They built the road maps and can fully replicate the programs that developed what has become the most transformative AI tool the world has yet seen.

Open AI has had a real moat around their tools. Simply, they are far superior to anything anyone else could even dream of competitively offering. Its real AI and it really works (ymmv). Keeping this team on the team keeps them from building competitive AI products elsewhere.

Its a great thing that this happened. It breaks the moat. I can guarantee that every significant executive on that team is getting flooded with offers to build competitive products elsewhere.

"I can understand why you chose this word, but I disagree with this. This was the board doing its duty to the mission of the nonprofit, which is to make sure that OpenAI builds AGI that benefits all of humanity," Sutskever said.

One can hope

All kinds of conspiracy theories are running through my head in light of further departures.

1. Board has asked Altman to do something shady, he said he'd do it but really he didn't and they've got pissed firing him. Folks who were viewed as his "clique" naturally got worried and left before their names get tarnished.
2. Altman and a group of supporters were up to no good, board got a whiff of it and fired him, and everyone involved saw the writing on the wall and resigned
3. Board was shaping things up for acquisition, Altman opposed and was shown the door. Folks close enough to him understood the consequence and quit with their resumes clean of what's to come. ...

so many things will remain unknown for the nearest future it's hard to tell who's lying about what.

Interesting, I'm gonna guess they'll get together to start a new startup?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Three senior researchers have quit from artificial intelligence firm OpenAI following the dismissal of its CEO Sam Altman, The Information reported, citing multiple people familiar with the situation.

In a statement announcing the decision, OpenAI said it no longer had "confidence" in Altman's ability to lead the company, adding that he was "not consistently candid in his communications."

Brockman said in a post on X that he was "super proud of what we've all built together since starting in my apartment 8 years ago … but based on today's news, I quit."

Brockman later shared a brief timeline of events on X, outlining how Altman's dismissal had played out and the role of Ilya Sutskever, one of the company's cofounders and its chief scientist.

This was the board doing its duty to the mission of the nonprofit, which is to make sure that OpenAI builds AGI that benefits all of humanity," Sutskever said.

Under Altman's tenure, OpenAI launched the pioneering AI chatbot ChatGPT and secured $10 billion in investment from Microsoft.

The original article contains 482 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

He's distancing his reputation before the collapse.