zlacker

Fascinating, I see a lot of VC/Msfot has overthrown our NPO governing structure because of profit incentives narrative.

I don't think this is what really happened at all. The reason this decision was made was because 95% of employees sided with Sam on this issue, and the board didn't explain themselves in any way at all. So it was Sam + 95% of employees + All investors against the board. In which case the board should lose (since they are only governing for themselves here).

I think in the end a good and fair outcome. I still think their governing structure is decent to solve the AGI problem, this particular board was just really bad.

>>lysecr+(OP)
next time, can't wait to see what happens when capital is on the opposite side of the 95% of employees.

>>lysecr+(OP)
Of course, the profit incentive also applies to all the employees (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, its good to align the company's goals with those of the employees). But when the executives likely have 10s of millions of dollars on the line, and many of the IC's will likely have single digit millions on the line as well, it doesn't seem exactly straightforward to view this as the employees are unbiased adjudicators of what's in the interest of the non-profit entity, which is supposed to be what's in charge.

It is sort of strange that our communal reaction is to say "well this board didn't act anything like a normal corporate board": of course it didn't, that was indeed the whole point of not having a normal corporate board in charge.

Whatever you think of Sam, Adam, Ilya etc, the one conclusion that seems safe to reach is that in the end, the profit/financial incentives ended up being far more important than the NGOs mission, no matter what legal structure was in place.

>>lysecr+(OP)
1. Microsoft was heavily involved in orchestrating the 95% of employees to side with Sam -- through promising them money/jobs and through PR/narrative 2. The profit incentives apply to employees too

Bigger picture, I don't think the "money/VC/MSFT/commercialization faction destroyed the safety/non-profit faction" is mutually exclusive with "the board fucked up." IMO, both are true

>>lysecr+(OP)
I don't think the board was big enough for starters. Of the folks on their, only one (Adam) had experience as a leader of a for profit venture. Helen probably lacks the leadership background to make any progress pushing her priorities.