zlacker

Satya will probably allow them to run a startup under the MS umbrella without interference and with full MS backing.

>>mirzap+(OP)
I really don’t think that’s in the Microsoft DNA to do

>>mirzap+(OP)
How will equity and compensation work

AI peeps are not cheap

>>mirzap+(OP)
Yeah... Not really how a mega-corp like MSFT does things. They LOVE to have control.

>>sekai+r1
It’s not 1998 anymore, you’d be surprised

>>jimsim+U
multiple ways to make that work. LTIPs, share options, direct equity in subsidiary etc

>>sekai+r1
It is Satya we are talking about, I won't bet against him.

>>manc_l+R1
MSFT comp is shit though

OAI comp was high based on equity and its crazy valuations

>>mirzap+(OP)
Highly unlikely. Instead they'll be working on internal Windows AI tools for chatbots and random AI features in Windows. We all lose in this situation.

>>dagmx+h
This is not Ballmer era. It's Satya.

>>esskay+o2
There’s no chance Sam is joining Microsoft to be some “VP of AI” to drive strategy like that. He’s going to be driving some new business where he’ll be able to move quickly and have a ton of control.

>>sekai+r1
Was not the Xbox team kinda run like that?

>>dagmx+h
As I was saying, Satya justt confirmed it: https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1726516824597258569

>>esskay+o2
As I was saying, Satya just confirmed it: https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1726516824597258569

>>sekai+r1
Microsoft is not a pyramid organization, but distributed into teams - like Google, for better or for worse.

>>sekai+r1
Microsoft seems to be the best of the mega-corps at that.

>>jimsim+j2
Is Microsoft compensation for top AI talent also bad?

>>sekai+r1
The game studios under Xbox run quite independently with the most extreme example being Mojang with Minecraft which still releases all their games on Playstation/Nintendo consoles too. But the other studios are also very independent based on all the interviews (though they don't in general release their games on Playstation or Switch)

As I understand Github is also run very independently from Microsoft in general.

>>sekai+r1
These are incorrect priors, especially when the mega-corp in question is Microsoft under Satya Nadella.

>>jimsim+j2
Microsoft comp is actually not bad at higher levels, which I assume will be given to all OAI people that will join.

>>sekai+r1
Source for the below: Worked at Skype before and after the MS acquisition.

MSFT's control isn't as "hard" as you portray it to be. At the senior leadership level they're pretty happy to allow divisions quite a lot of autonomy. Sure there are broad directives like if you support multiple platforms/OSes then the best user experience should be on "our" platform. But that still leaves a lot of room for maneuverability.

Soft control via human resources and company culture is a whole other beast though. There are a lot of people with 20+ years of experience at Microsoft who are happy to jump on job openings for middle-management roles in the "sexy" divisions of the company - the ones which are making headlines and creating new markets. And each one that slides on in brings a lot of the lifelong Microsoft mindset with them.

So yeah working within MS will be a very different experience for Altman, but not necessarily because of an iron grip from above.

>>mirzap+X2
This is not Melkor era. It's Sauron.

>>jimsim+j2
For us maybe, but they have pulled off some high profile hires in the past… Brendan Burns (one of the main k8s guys) for example.

>>saagar+G7
Received wisdom has been “not competitive”. I wonder how the MSR folk feel about all of this, too.

>>Wurdan+A9
Funny that you mention Skype as this is my prime example of extremely accelerated product disintegration.

>>sekai+r1
It's not really how MSFT does things though?

Github operates independently of Microsoft. (To Microsoft's detriment... they offer Azure Devops which is their enterprisey copy of Github, with entirely different UX and probably different codebase.) They shove the copilot AI now everywhere but it still seems to operate fairly differently.

They didn't really fold LinkedIn in into anything (there are some weird LinkedIn integrations in Teams but that's it)

Google seems to me much worse in this aspect, all Google aquisitions usually become Googley.

Skype sort of became Teams thought, that's true.

>>esskay+o2
Optimization of Microsoft Edge (tm) icon placement to win the browser wars.

>>singul+Pd
My view on that (which was from very low on the totem pole) is that the acquisition happened at a time where Skype's core business model (paid calling minutes) was under existential threat. Consumer communications preferences had started to go from synchronous (calling) to async (messaging) even before the acquisition came through. While Skype had asynchronous communications in a decent place (file transfer in the P2P days was pretty shaky but otherwise consumer Skype was a solid messaging platform), there was no revenue there for us.

Then the acquisition happened at a time when Microsoft presented a lot of opportunities to ship Skype "in the box" to pretty much all of MS' customers. Windows 8, Xbox One and Windows Phone (8) all landed at more or less the same time. Everybody's eyes became too big for their stomachs, and we tried to build brand new native experiences for all of these platforms (and the web) all at once. This hampered our ability to pivot and deal with the existential risks I mentioned earlier, and we had the rug pulled out from under us.

So yes I think the acquisition hurt us, but I also never once heard a viable alternative business strategy that we might have pivoted to if the acquisition hadn't happened.

>>dagmx+h
I believe Microsoft R&D has always been a widely respected and culturally “different” org than the rest of the Microsoft org.

>>dagmx+h
Sure but this situation overrrides that. Sam has a lot of bargaining power.

>>jimsim+j2
OpenAI never gave equity.

>>shp0ng+pe
> Github operates independently of Microsoft. (To Microsoft's detriment... they offer Azure Devops which is their enterprisey copy of Github, with entirely different UX and probably different codebase.)

GitHub Actions is basically Azure Pipelines repackaged with a different UI, so I don't think they mind much.

>>mirzap+L4
This was inevitable and the only path forward.

>>38318205

>>38337522

>>38342882

>>mirzap+L4
Saying it and doing it are very different things. Many huge, lumbering companies have a “startup” lab. Few have done anything of note, and typically it’s because the reasons that made the company move slow and not take risks don’t magically disappear because you’re in a different part of the org chart.

>>ctvo+4D
If anything, the examples in that tweet shows the opposite. GitHub and Mojang both done lots of things that wouldn't happen if they weren't now Microsoft, especially GitHub which is only "GitHub" by name at this point, none of the original spirit is still there.

>>ctvo+4D
100% agree

>>Wurdan+5i
That's a completely new take for me on how things went down. Thanks for sharing.

>>ctvo+4D
Microsoft is not just any huge, lumbering company, though. It has probably the best history of research of any pure software company (leaving aside IBM etc): Microsoft Research funded Haskell behind the scenes for years, they had a quantum computing unit in 2006, and already in 2018 were beating the field in AI patents and research:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2019/01/06/micros...

Believing that OpenAI is MSFT's sole move in the AI space would be a serious error.