zlacker

I'm sure most of them are extremely intelligent but the situation showed they are easily persuaded, even if principled. They will have to overcome many first-of-a-kind challenges on their quest to AGI but look at how quickly everyone got pulled into a feel-good kumbaya sing-along.

Think of that what you wish. To me, this does not project confidence in this being the new Bell Labs. I'm not even sure they have it in their DNA to innovate their products much beyond where they currently are.

>>Satam+(OP)
> feel-good kumbaya sing-along

learning english over HN is so fun !

>>Satam+(OP)
I think another factor is that they had very limited time. It was clear they needed to pick a side and build momentum quickly.

They couldn’t sit back and dwell on it for a few days because then the decision (i.e. the status quo) would have been made for them.

>>Satam+(OP)
I thought so originally too, but when I thought about their perspective, I realized I would probably sign too. Imagine that your CEO and leadership has led your company to the top of the world, and you're about to get a big payday. Suddenly, without any real explanation, the board kicks out the CEO. The leadership almost all supports the CEO and signs the pledge, including your manager. What would you do at that point? Personally, I'd sign just so I didn't stand out, and stay on good terms with leadership.

The big thing for me is that the board didn't say anything in its defense, and the pledge isn't really binding anyway. I wouldn't actually be sure about supporting the CEO and that would bother me a bit morally, but that doesn't outweigh real world concerns.

>>Satam+(OP)
> situation showed they are “easily persuaded”

How do you know?

> look at how “quickly” everyone got pulled into

Again, how do you know?

>>abm53+y
Great point. Either way, when this all started it might have all been too late.

The board said "allowing the company to be destroyed would be consistent with the mission" - and they might have been right. What's now left is a money-hungry business with bad unit economics that's masquerading as a charity for the whole of humanity. A zombie.

>>Satam+(OP)
Persuaded by whom? This whole saga has been opaque to pretty much everyone outside the handful of individuals directly negotiating with each other. This never was about a battle for OpenAI's mission or else the share of employees siding with Sam wouldn't have been that high.

>>ah765+z1
The point of no return for the company might have been crossed way before the employees were forced to choose sides. Choose Sam's side and the company lives but only as a bittersweet reminder of its founding principles. Choose the board's side and you might be dooming the company to die an even faster death.

But maybe for further revolutions to happen, it did have to die to be reborn as several new entities. After all, that is how OpenAI itself started - people from different backgrounds coming together to go against the status quo.

>>Satam+f5
What happened over the weekend is a death and rebirth, of the board and the leaderships structure which will definitely ripple throughout the company in the coming days. It just doesn't align perfectly with how you want it to happen.

>>Satam+(OP)
My understanding is that the non-profit created the for-profit so that they could offer compensation which would be typical for SV start-ups. Then the board essentially broke the for-profit by removing the SV CEO and putting the "payday" which would have valued the company at 80 billion in jeopardy. The two sides weren't aligned, and they need to decide which company they want to be. Maybe they should have removed Sam before MS came in with their big investment. Or maybe they want to have their cake and eat it too.

>>ssnist+P3
Why not? Maybe the board was just too late to the party. Maybe the employees that wouldn’t side with Sam have already left[1], and the board was just too late to realise that. And maybe all the employees who are still at OpenAI mostly care about their equity-like instruments.

[1] https://board.net/p/r.e6a8f6578787a4cc67d4dc438c6d236e