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.

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

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

>>tapoxi+(OP)
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+62
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+(OP)
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.

>>dghlsa+S3
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+(OP)
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+H3
Haha I see you’ve never had a contract with Microsoft. They are hyper aggressive and full of explosive gotchas.

>>tsunam+p4
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+m5
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 For example all windows license are free with office 10 year deal however if the deal is withdrawn all windows licenses are owned immediately upon cancellation.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.

>>tsunam+O5
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+e6
Im agreeing with you.

>>tsunam+h7
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+i4
You know MS has a quarter of a million employees, right?