When a politician wins with 98% of the vote do you A) think that person must be an incredible leader , or B) think something else is going on?
Only time will tell if this was a good or bad outcome, but for now the damage is done and OpenAI has a lot of trust rebuilding to do to shake off the reputation that it now has after this circus.
The simple answer here is that the boards actions stood to incinerate millions of dollars of wealth for most of these employees, and they were up in arms.
They’re all acting out the intended incentives of giving people stake in a company: please don’t destroy it.
I don’t understand how the fact they went from a nonprofit into a for-profit subsidiary of one of the most closed-off anticompetitive megacorps in tech is so readily glossed over. I get it, we all love money and Sam’s great at generating it, but anyone who works at OpenAI besides the board seems to be morally bankrupt.
Pretty easy to complain about lack of morals when it’s someone else’s millions of dollars of potential compensation that will be incinerated.
Also, working for a subsidiary (which was likely going to be given much more self-governance than working directly at megacorp), doesn’t necessarily mean “evil”. That’s a very 1-dimensional way to think about things.
We can acknowledge that it's morally bankrupt, while also not blaming them. Hell, I'd probably do the same thing in their shoes. That doesn't make it right.
If some of the smartest people on the planet are willing to sell the rest of us out for Comfy Lifestyle Money (not even Influence State Politics Money), then we are well and truly Capital-F Fucked.
We already know some of the smartest people are willing to sell us out. Because they work for FAANG ad tech, spending their days figuring out how to maximize the eyeballs they reach while sucking up all your privacy.
> Pretty easy to complain about lack of morals when it’s someone else’s millions of dollars of potential compensation that will be incinerated.
That is a part of the reason why organizations choose to set themselves up as a non-profit, to help codify those morals into the legal status of the organization to ensure that the ingrained selfishness that exists in all of us doesn’t overtake their mission. That is the heart of this whole controversy. If OpenAI was never a non-profit, there wouldn’t be any issue here because they wouldn’t even be having this legal and ethical fight. They would just be pursuing the selfish path like all other for profit businesses and there would be no room for the board to fire or even really criticize Sam.
I guess my qualm is that this is the cost of doing business, yet people are outraged at the board because they’re not going to make truckloads of money in equity grants. That’s the morally bankrupt part in my opinion.
If you throw your hands up and say, “well kudos to them, theyre actually fulfilling their goal of being a non profit. I’m going to find a new job”. That’s fine by me. But if you get morally outraged at the board over this because you expected the payday of a lifetime, that’s on you.
Easy to see how humans would join a non profit for the vibes, and then when they create one of the most compelling products of the last decade worth billions of dollars, quickly change their thinking into "wait, i should get rewarded for this".
Wild the employees will go back under a new board and the same structure, first priority should be removing the structure that allowed a small group of people to destroy things over what may have been very petty reasons.
Well it's a different group of people and that group will now know the consequences of attempting to remove Sam Altman. I don't see this happening again.
Not that I have any insight into any of the events at OpenAI, but would just like to point out there are several other reasons why so many people would sign, including but not limited to:
- peer pressure
- group think
- financial motives
- fear of the unknown (Sam being a known quantity)
- etc.
So many signatures may well mean there's consensus, but it's not a given. It may well be that we see a mass exodus of talent from OpenAI _anyway_, due to recent events, just on a different time scale.
If I had to pick one reason though, it's consensus. This whole saga could've been the script to an episode of Silicon Valley[1], and having been on the inside of companies like that I too would sign a document asking for a return to known quantities and – hopefully – stability.
If the opposing letter that was published from "former" employee's is correct there was already a huge turn over, and the people that remain liked the environment they were in, and I would assume liked the current leadership or they would have left
So clearly the current leadship built a loyal group which I think is something that should be explored because group think is rarely a good thing, no matter how much modern society wants to push out all dissent in favor of a monoculture of idea's
If openAI is a huge mono-culture of thinking then they have bigger problems most likely
What opposing letter, how many people are we talking about, and what was their role in the company?
All companies are monocultures, IMO, unless they are multi-nationals, and even then, there's cultural convergence. And that's good, actually. People in a company have to be aligned enough to avoid internal turmoil.
>>What opposing letter, how many people are we talking about, and what was their role in the company?
Not-validated, unsigned letter [1]
>>All companies are monocultures
yes and no. There has be diversity of thought to ever get anything done really, ever everyone is just sycophants all agreeing with the boss then you end up with very bad product choices, and even worse company direction.
yes there has to be some commonality. some semblance of shared vision or values, but I dont think that makes a "monoculture"
The only major series with a brilliant, satisfying, and true to form ending and you want to resuscitate it back to life for some cheap curtain calls and modern social commentary, leaving Mike Judge to end it yet again and in such a way that manages to duplicate or exceed the effect of the first time but without doing the same thing? Screw it. Why not?
You could say that, except that people in this industry are the most privileged, and their earnings and equity would probably be matched elsewhere.
You say “group think” like it's a bad thing. There's always wisdom in crowds. We have a mob mentality as an evolutionary advantage. You're also willing to believe that 3–4 people can make better judgement calls than 800 people. That's only possible if the board has information that's not public, and I don't think they do, or else they would have published it already.
And … it doesn't matter why there's such a wide consensus. Whether they care about their legacy, or earnings, or not upsetting their colleagues, doesn't matter. The board acted poorly, undoubtedly. Even if they had legitimate reasons to do what they did, that stopped mattering.
I'm imagining they see themselves in the position of Microsoft employees about to release Windows 95, or Apple employees about to release the iPhone... and someone wants to get rid of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
Gates and Jobs helped establish these companies as the powerhouses they are today with their leadership in the 90s and 00s.
It's fair to say that what got MS and Apple to dominance may be different from what it takes to keep them there, but which part of that corporate timeline more closely resembles OpenAI?
Right. They aren't actually voting for Sam Altman. If I'm working at a company and I see as little as 10% of the company jump ship I think "I'd better get the frik outta here". Especially if I respect the other people who are leaving. This isnt a blind vote. This is a rolling snowball.
I don't think very many people actually need to believe in Sam Altman for basically everyone to switch to Microsoft.
95% doesn't show a large amount of loyalty to Sam it shows a low amount of loyalty to OpenAI.
Personally I have never seen that level of singular agreement in any group of people that large. Especially to the level of sacrifice they were willing to take for the cause. You maybe see that level of devotion to a leader in churches or cults, but in any other group? You can barely get 3 people to agree on a restaurant for lunch.
I am not saying something nefarious forced it, but it’s certainly unusual in my experience and this causes me to be skeptical of why.
This seems extremely presumptuous. Have you ever been inside a company during a coup attempt? The employees’ future pay and livelihood is at stake, why are you assuming they weren’t being asked to sacrifice themselves by not objecting to the coup. The level of agreement could be entirely due to the fact that the stakes are very large, completely unlike your choice for lunch locale. It could also be an outcome of nobody having asked their opinion before making a very big change. I’d expect to see almost everyone at a company agree with each other if the question was, “hey should we close this profitable company and all go get other jobs, or should we keep working?”
I have had a long career and have been through hostile mergers several times and at no point have I ever seen large numbers of employees act outside of their self-interest for an executive. It just doesn’t happen. Even in my career, with executives who are my friends, I would not act outside my personal interests. When things are corporately uncertain and people worry about their working livelihoods they just don’t tend to act that way. They tend to hunker heads down or jump independently.
The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that these folks know that AI is hot right now and would be scooped up quickly by other orgs…so there is little risk in taking a stand. Without that caveat, there is no doubt in my mind that there would not be this level of solidarity to a CEO.
If you are willing to leave a paycheck because of someone else getting slighted, to me, that is acting against your own self-interest. Assuming of course you are willing to actually leave. If it was a bluff, that still works against your self-interest by factioning against the new leadership and inviting retaliation for your bluff.
Why do you assume they were willing to leave a paycheck because of someone else getting slighted? If that were the case, then it is unlikely everyone would be in agreement. Which indicates you might be making incorrect assumptions, no? And, again, why assume they were threatening to leave a paycheck at all? That’s a bad assumption; MS was offering a paycheck. We already know their salaries weren’t on the line, but all future stock earnings and bonuses very well might be. There could be other reasons too, I don’t see how you can conclude this was either a bluff or not self-interest without making potentially bad assumptions.
They threatened to quit by moving to Microsoft, didn’t you read the letter? MS assured everyone jobs if they wanted to move. Isn’t making incorrect assumptions and sticking to them in the face of contrary evidence and not answering direct questions the very definition of obtuse?
>Especially to the level of sacrifice they were willing to take for the cause.
We have no idea that they were sacrificing anything personally. The packages Microsoft offered for people who separated may have been much more generous than what they were currently sitting on. Sure, Altman is a good leader, but Microsoft also has deep pockets. When you see some of the top brass at the company already make the move and you know they're willing to pay to bring you over as well, we're not talking about a huge risk here. If anything, staying with what at the time looked like a sinking ship might have been a much larger sacrifice.
There are plenty of examples of workers unions voting with similar levels of agreement. Here are two from the last couple months:
> UAW President Shawn Fain announced today that the union’s strike authorization vote passed with near universal approval from the 150,000 union workers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Final votes are still being tabulated, but the current combined average across the Big Three was 97% in favor of strike authorization. The vote does not guarantee a strike will be called, only that the union has the right to call a strike if the Big Three refuse to reach a fair deal.
> The Writers Guild of America has voted overwhelmingly to ratify its new contract, formally ending one of the longest labor disputes in Hollywood history. The membership voted 99% in favor of ratification, with 8,435 voting yes and 90 members opposed.
Approval rates of >90% are quite common within political parties, to the point where anything less can be seen as an embarrassment to the incumbent head of party.
There is a big difference between “I agree with this…” when a telephone poll caller reaches you and “I am willing to leave my livelihood because my company CEO got fired”
But if 100 employees were like "I'm gonna leave" then your livelihood is in jeopardy. So you join in. It's really easy to see 90% of people jumping overboard when they are all on a sinking ship.
I don't mean voter approval, I mean party member approval. That's arguably not that far off from a CEO situation in a way in that it's the opinion of and support for the group's leadership by group members.
Voter approval is actually usually much less unanimous, as far as I can tell.
But it’s not changing their livelihood. Msft just gives them the same deal. In a lot of ways, it’s similar to the telepoll - people can just say whatever they want, there won’t be big material consequences
That sounds like a cult more than a business. I work at a small company (~100 people), and we are more or less aligned with what we're doing you are not going to get close to that consensus on anything. Same for our sister company, about the same size as OpenAI.
1. The company has built a culture around not being under control by one single company, Microsoft in this case. Employees may overwhelmingly agree.
2. The board acted rashly in the first place, and over 2/3 of employees signed their intent to quit if the board hadn't been replaced.
3. Younger folks probably don't look highly at boards in general, because they never get to interact with them. They also sometimes dictate product outcomes that could go against the creative freedoms and autonomy employees are looking for. Boards are also focused on profits, which is a net-good for the company, but threatens the culture of "for the good of humanity" that hooks people.
4. The high success of OpenAI has probably inspired loyalty in its employees, so long as it remains stable, and their perception of what stability is means that the company ultimately changes little. Being "acquired" by Microsoft here may mean major shakeups and potential layoffs. There's no guarantees for the bulk of workers here.
I'm reading into the variables and using intuition to make these guesses, but all to suggest: it's complicated, and sometimes outliers like these can happen if those variables create enough alignment, if they seem common-sensical enough to most.
> Younger folks probably don't look highly at boards in general, because they never get to interact with them.
Judging from the photos I've seen of the principals in this story, none of them looks to be over 30, and some of them look like schoolkids. I'm referring to the board members.
I don't think the age of the board members matters, but rather that younger generations have been taught to criticize boards of any & every company for their myriad decisions to sacrifice good things for profit, etc.
It's a common theme in the overall critique of late stage capitalism, is all I'm saying — and that it could be a factor in influencing OpenAI's employees' decisions to seek action that specifically eliminates the current board, as a matter of inherent bias that boards act problematically to begin with.
I also sounds like a very narrow hiring profile. That is, favoring the like-minded and assimilation over free thinking and philosophical diversity. They might give off the appearance of "diversity" on the outside - which is great for PR - but under the hood it's more monocultural. Maybe?
Superficial "diversity" is all the "diversity" a company needs in the modern era.
Companies do not desire or seek philosophical diversity, they only want Superficial biologically based "diversity" to prove they have the "correct" philosophy about the world.
But it's not only the companies, it's the marginalized so desperate to get a "seat at the table" that they don't recognize the table isn't getting bigger and rounder. Instead, it's still the same rectangular that is getting longer and longer.
Agree. This is the monoculture being adopted in actuality -- a racist crusade against "whiteness", and a coercive mechanism to ensure companies don't overstep their usage of resources (carbon footprint), so as not to threaten the existing titans who may have already abused what was available to them before these intracorporate policies existed.
It's also a way for banks and other powerful entities to enforce sweeping policies across international businesses that haven't been enacted in law. In other words: if governing bodies aren't working for them, they'll just do it themselves and undermine the will of companies who do not want to participate, by introducing social pressures and boycotting potential partnerships unless they comply.
Ironically, it snuffs out diversity among companies at a 40k foot level.
It's not a crusade against whiteness. Unless you're unhinged and believe a single phenotype that prevents skin cancer is somehow an obvious reflection of genetic inferiority and that those lacking it have a historical destiny to rule over the rest and are entitled to institutional privileges over them, it makes sense that companies with employees not representative of the overall population have hiring practices that are problematic, albeit not necessarily being as explicitly racist as you are.
Unfortunately you are wrong, and this kind of rhetoric has not only made calls for white genocide acceptable and unpunished, but has incited violence specifically against Caucasian people, as well as anyone who is perceived to adopt "white" thinking such as Asian students specifically, and even Black folks who see success in their life as a result of adopting longstanding European/Western principles in their lives.
Specifically, principles that have ultimately led to the great civilizations we're experiencing today, built upon centuries of hard work and deep thinking in both the arts and sciences, by all races, beautifully.
DEI and its creators/pushers are a subtle effort to erase and rebuild this prior work under the lie that it had excluded everyone but Whites, so that its original creators no longer take credit.
Take the movement to redefine Math concepts by recycling existing concepts using new terms defined exclusively by non-white participants, since its origins are "too white". Oh the horror! This is false, as there are many prominent non-white mathematicians that existed prior to the woke revolution, so this movement's stated purpose is a lie, and its true purpose is to eliminate and replace white influence.
Finally, the fact that DEI specifically targets "whiteness" is patently racist. Period.
I think that most pushes for diversity that we see today are intended to result in monocultures.
DEI and similar programs use very specific racial language to manipulate everyone into believing whiteness is evil and that rallying around that is the end goal for everyone in a company.
On a similar note, the company has already established certain missions and values that new hires may strongly align with like: "Discovering and enacting the path to safe artificial general intelligence", given not only the excitement around AI's possibilities but also the social responsibility of developing it safely. Both are highly appealing goals that are bound to change humanity forever and it would be monumentally exciting to play a part in that.
Thus, it's safe to think that most employees who are lucky to have earned a chance at participating would want to preserve that, if they're aligned.
This kind of alignment is not the bad thing people think it is. There's nothing quite like a well-oiled machine, even if the perception of diversity from the outside falls by the wayside.
Diversity is too often sought after for vanity, rather than practical purposes. This is the danger of coercive, box-checking ESG goals we're seeing plague companies, to the extent that it's becoming unpopular to chase after due to the strongly partisan political connotations it brings.
That argument only works with a “population”, since almost nobody gets to choose which set of politicians they vote for.
In this case, OpenAI employees all voluntarily sought to join that team at one point. It’s not hard to imagine that 98% of a self-selecting group would continue to self-select in a similar fashion.
Odds are if he left there's the possibility their compensation situation might have changed for the worse if not leading to downsizing, that in the edge of a recession with plenty of competition out there.
Only time will tell if this was a good or bad outcome, but for now the damage is done and OpenAI has a lot of trust rebuilding to do to shake off the reputation that it now has after this circus.