OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

>>medler+(OP)
It now seems to me that it was inevitable that something like GPT would take off - but it didn't necessarily have to come from OpenAI. Someone else would have filled their place. The collective ML knowledge and research were rapidly evolving, computing was getting faster and cheaper. The pressure was building and at some point, something somewhere had to pop off. They were a great but not a singular team.

And it looks like now they might be very close to the limits of their own capability. I'm not sure how much more they can give.

On the surface, their new features always seem to be quite exciting. But when the dust settles it is again all very lackluster, often copied from open source ideas. Not something you can bet on.

Their biggest moats are their popularity, marketing, and their large bags of cash. The latter of which they are burning through extremely quickly. The thing is, it's easy to build something massive when you don't care about unit economics. But where do they end up when the competitive forces commoditize this?

When listening to interviews with Sam I was always surprised by how little useful information I am able to get out of listening to him. I'm sure he's very smart but he tries to project the aura of radical honesty while simultaneously trying to keep all of his cards extremely close to his chest. All that without the product chops to actually back it up. That's my read.

>>Satam+ok
> When listening to interviews with Sam I was always surprised by how little useful information I am able to get out of listening to him

To be fair, isn’t that kind of the bar for CEOs? Their job is to hire and fire senior people, ensure they have a mountain of cash, and put out fires.

It’s not an operational position and so I wouldn’t expect a CEO to have deep operational knowledge.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the division of labor though?

>>erikpu+3m
I think you're right but there might be a catch. It doesn't seem like he's able to steer the delivery of polished products either. I know it's the fastest growing app and all that but that's driven by their tech. I use ChatGPT daily but the tool itself has a subpar design, it lags, its streaming UI is choppy, it breaks and cuts off mid-sentence, and they are not able to meet the demand either.

I don't know how this unfolds but when somewhat smart models become a commodity, and thus the remaining 90% of the population get access to polished chatbots distributed through dominant platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. - where does that leave OpenAI at? High-end models probably. And maybe with superintelligence unlocked it's all that's needed to win business-wise, I don't know.

zlacker