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.
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?
> 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).
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.
And he did VC fund-raising before that for early projects too. Give his Wikipedia a read.
He is clearly a very savvy businessman and smooth operator on a personal level. And has been involved in enough high profile successes that I don't think it is a fluke.