zlacker

> 3. Sam and his buddies are taken care of because they are in for the money ultimately, whereas the true researchers can stay at OpenAI.

This one's not right - Altman famously had no equity in OpenAI. When asked by Congress he said he makes enough to pay for health insurance. It's pretty clear Sam wants to advance the state of AI quickly and is using commercialization as a tool to do that.

Otherwise I generally agree with you (except for maybe #2 - they had the right to commercialize GPTs anyway as part of the prior funding).

>>idopms+(OP)
Someone suggested earlier that he probably had some form of profit sharing pass-through, as has become popular in some circles.

>>tcbawo+c1
I think it makes more sense to take him at the spirit of what he said under oath to Congress (think of how bad it would look for him/OpenAI if he said he had no equity and only made enough for health insurance but actually was getting profit sharing) over some guy suggesting something on the internet with no evidence.

>>idopms+W1
Sam Altman is a businessman through and through based on his entire history. Chances are, he will have found an alternative means to make profit on OpenAI and he wouldn't do this on "charity". Just as how many CEOs say, I will "cut my salary" for example, they will never say "I cut my stocks or bonuses" which can be a lot more than their salary.

Either way based on many CEOs track records healthy skepticism should be involved and majority of them find ways to profit on it at some point or another.

>>idopms+W1
I think that would be consistent with his testimony. Profit sharing is not a salary and it is not equity. I don’t believe he ever claimed to have zero stake in future compensation.

>>majest+K5
I dunno, the guy has basically infinite money (and the ability to fundraise even more). I don't find it tough to imagine that he gets far more than monetary value from being the CEO of OpenAI.

He talked recently about how he's been able to watch these huge leaps in human progress and what a privilege that is. I believe that - don't you think it would be insane and amazing to get to see everything OpenAI is doing from the inside? If you already have so much money that the incremental value of the next dollar you earn is effectively zero, is it unreasonable to think that a seat at the table in one of the most important endeavors in the history of our species is worth more than any amount of money you could earn?

And then on top of that, even if you take a cynical view of things, he's put himself in a position where he can see at least months ahead of where basically all of technology is going to go. You don't actually have to be a shareholder to derive an enormous amount of value from that. Less cynically, it puts you in a position to steer the world toward what you feel is best.