zlacker

>>outrun+(OP)
I don't follow OpenAI or SV news all that much. Is this guy really that critical to the company? I thought Ilya Sutskever was the genius? Is this a non-compete thing, where they're scared Altman will take company secrets to a competitor, or is this dude actually a major factor in the company's success (and not just a lucky bystander)?

>>bogwog+6Q2
He is one of the most well connected people in tech and probably responsible for all of their partnerships and fundraising success. His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. To top it off he'd probably raise a few billion and poach half of the team.

>>m_ke+CR2
> His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies.

How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes that eventually OpenAI will turn to full-profit mode.

It is pretty clear, that if board wants to run company for greater good, for-profit-only CEO must leave.

>>nicce+jU2
He can poach away half the staff IMMEDIATELY. You cannot run a company with majority of your key personnels gone in a week. Then the remaining staff will be moving over within 3mths to a year. What OpenAI will be left in a year time will be back to square one, startup mode. Whatever tech they have now it will stay stagnant. Whatever tech Altman started in his new venture will be just slightly behind what OpenAI has. Within a year Altman will supercede it. He is that important. Think Steve Jobs to Apple but AI.

>>John71+Iq3
Those people have kids and mortgages and car payments. And are very well compensated. They aren’t gone by this time next week. Is there any precedent for that? Nobody does that.

Yeah sure eventually he could poach people and it’s always possible that this is the beginning of a transition but there’s some seriously magical thinking going on here.

>>CPLX+qu3
I have no reason to believe Sam Altman's a similar case, but have you heard of Nick Calandra? He was editor and chief of the escapist. Last week he got fired, the entire video department (~20 people) resigned and they immediately started a company together called Second Wind.

>>MrLeap+Pw3
Sure I’ll buy 20 employees walking. That’s plausible.

OpenAI has 700 and they’re highly compensated. How would you even onboard and meet payroll in a week for a non existent entity if you suddenly had even half that number?

Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting?

>>CPLX+ry3
> How would you even onboard and meet payroll in a week for a non existent entity if you suddenly had even half that number?

> Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting?

Not saying it will happen but I'd honestly say this would be the least of the issues. VC's and established companies would be fighting tooth and nail to invest money in whatever venture Sam Altman/Greg Brockman + whatever % of staffers were launching. Money would not be the problem here. Think of how much money so many were willing to throw at the con-job that the vast majority of crypto was and then think of how much money they would throw at AI tools (which are clearly a big deal already).

>>TapWat+MA3
I mean we’ll see.

As far as I can tell Altman’s real serious talent is getting billionaire types to like him. First Paul Graham then Elon and the initial OpenAI funders. In both cases he seems to have been dropped rather abruptly after running things for a few years.

He has never personally built meaningful tech and has definitely never actually demonstrated anything approaching popularity with any rank and file employees.

Might happen. But it sure hasn’t yet. I don’t doubt that the Davos / Bohemian Grove set will install him in another position though, he does seem to have a genuine knack for that.

>>CPLX+xB3
Did Paul Graham drop him?