zlacker

I read Nadella has threatened to turn off OpenAIs computers and would litigate the hell out of them to prevent the computers from being turned back on. Which is why the board is suddenly open to negotiation with Altman.

Yeah, that's the Microsoft of old. Don't trust 'em.

Bad news for OpenAI, and any hope that this stuff won't be used for evil.

>>lordfr+(OP)
>I read Nadella has threatened to turn off OpenAIs computers and would litigate the hell out of them to prevent the computers from being turned back on.

What a way to destroy confidence in Azure, or cloud platforms in general.

>>lordfr+(OP)
It would be the same thing for which people are accusing the OpenAI board.

Play ball else we'll pull out wires off your cloud instances. Let's keep in mind Azure is the main cash cow of MS.

>>tapoxi+S1
Why. Microsoft pays openAIs azure bills. Do you not know how that’s different than any other situation?

>>tapoxi+S1
Nah, it is MSFTs contingency plan in all this. U don’t invest 10B and get blindsided. It would be hilarious it is forced to threaten the board to comply this way

But it will work.

>>tsunam+Y3
Presumably, under a contractual relationship tied to their licensing agreement with OpenAI. So, this kind of threat undermines confidence in Microsoft's contractual agreements.

>>tapoxi+S1
Not really.

The deal was that MS was going to give them billions in exchange for 49% of the for-profit entity. They were also reportedly waiving the azure bill since their interests are aligned.

MS is saying that if we give you 10 billion dollars and don’t charge you for azure, then there are some obvious strings attached.

OpenAI is presumably free to do what the rest of the players in this space are doing and pay for their Azure resources if they don’t want to play nice with their business partners.

>>lordfr+(OP)
I had to read it multiple times to understand you wrote Computers to mean Servers.

>>dghlsa+K5
is that codified in the the contract between them though? Microsoft, through the stock price, has much more to lose than OpenAI. The can apply pressure but don't have full control of the outcome here.

>>tapoxi+S1
The Microsoft is now a good guy is just a PR scam. I got asked by a Microsoft employee to add support for Azure on my OSS work on my free time: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash/issues/180

He never made the PR and was just there to ask me to implement the thing for his own benefits ....

>>dragon+z5
Haha I see you’ve never had a contract with Microsoft. They are hyper aggressive and full of explosive gotchas.

>>tsunam+h6
To be fair, you wouldn't know they're hyper aggressive until they actually move to enforce part of the contract. Most of their "partners" probably never need to meet that side of their legal team.

If I measured the "aggressiveness" of every contract based on the potential litigation of all its clauses, I'd never sign anything.

>>chatma+e7
They are pretty on the nose with explosive triggers. For example all windows license are free with office 10 year deal however if the deal is withdrawn all windows licenses are owned immediately upon cancellation. This is just the basic explosive stuff it gets worse from there.

>>lordfr+(OP)
[citation needed]

>>tsunam+G7
Sure, but any clause of the contract that requires followup action to collect payment is hardly ever going to be enforced. It's only when you're partnering with them at the scale of OpenAI that you need to worry about details like that.

And in regards to OpenAI, note that (according to TFA), Microsoft has barely distributed any of their committed "$10 billion" of investment. So they have real leverage when threatening to deploy their team of lawyers to quibble over the partnership contract. And I don't think that "undermines confidence" in Microsoft's contractual agreements, given that there are only two or three other companies that have ever partnered with Microsoft at this scale (Apple and Google come to mind).

>>chatma+68
Im agreeing with you.

>>tsunam+99
Care to sign a partnership agreement? I'll need you to personally indemnify against any defection to GP's side, of course - any subsequent comment in violation of these terms could be subject to arbitration and voiding of the partnership agreement.

>>mickae+a6
You know MS has a quarter of a million employees, right?

>>lordfr+(OP)
You're reading this wrong.

When you fuck up, you get punished for it. And the OpenAI board is about to be punished. This is the problem with giving power to people who don't actually understand how the world works. They use it stupidly, short-sightedly, and without considering the full ramifications of their actions.

>>lordfr+(OP)
> litigate the hell out of them ..

I thought one of the reasons people incorporated companies in the US is that there is a working judiciary system that can ensure the upholding of contracts. Sure the big money can apply some pressure to the dispossessed but if you have a few million cash (and OpenAI surely has) you should be able to force them to uphold their contracts.

Also imagine the bad PR from Microsoft if they decide to not honour their contracts and stop OpenAI from using their computer power for something that OpenAI leadership can easily spin as retaliation.

Sure, this latest move from OpenAI board will wreck the momentum that OpenAI had and its ability to continue its partnership with MS but one of the thesis here was that that's the goal in the first place and they're legally free to pursue that goal if they believe the unfolding of events goes against the funding principles of OpenAI.

That said, they choose a risky path to begin with when they created this for-profit controlled by a non-profit model.

>>lordfr+(OP)
Also not paying the rest of the tranches that would make up the $10B. Also with Microsoft being their exclusive commercial partner, they can’t revenue fund if Microsoft stops the spigots. No other investor would want to invest. PPUs lose most of their value and employees leave. How to implode the most important company of our times with record speed.

It’s also strange why they would have a couple of nobodies on the board.