These are huge losses. Pachocki led pre-training for GPT-4, and probably GPT-5. Brockman is the major engineer responsible for the efficiency improvements that enabled ChatGPT and GPT-4 to be even remotely cost-effective. That is a piece that is often overlooked, but OpenAI's advantage over the competition in compute efficiency is probably even larger than the model itself.
https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6309033/greg-brockman...
Most programming work in any project and company is mundane, so I do agree someone taking care of all that without whining is actually extremely valuable. I couldn’t do it.
Still doesn’t really make sense to put him on such a pedestal like many in this thread. It seems like a cultural thing in the US to overvalue individuals, and downplay the importance of good teams.
Personally, I find it much easier to get lost in time and focused when I am working on something challenging. Time just flies by.
If I have to work on something boring / routine / repetitive I find it much hard to focus and time goes by so slowly.
Then my brain decides to look for ways to automate what I am doing. Perhaps a DSL or .. or .. o .. No work, remember work, but I could hmm if I write a Perl script i, No work you need to work, but it woud be work if i cold only
(I am diagnosed with ADHD)
So basically, my brain is lazy and try to find a way to keep it in that state.