Microsoft has hired OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman to head up a "new advanced AI research team," the software conglomerate's chief Satya Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and many of their former OpenAI colleagues will join Microsoft, Satya Nadella said.
So Microsoft is going to compete with themselves? (Microsoft owns 49% of openai)
“I play both sides so I always come out ahead”
Sam probably still controls a ton of shares, so I think effectively this would give them >50% of shares as long as they are partnering.
Sam had 0 equity in OpenAI. 0 shares.
Wow really? I’ve never heard of a CEO not getting options.
Yea the whole setup they have going on is weird.
That’s honestly really sus
Back both horses and drop the one that loses the race.
The thing is that there many many horses in this race
Having two entrants is still better than one.
Not really if you have to divide resources between two. Computing necessary for training these models is not cheap and there is an obvious opportunity cost here.
MS has more than enough cash and resources to back two horses.
This also gives them the luxury of trying a different approach.
Time will tell my guess is that Microsoft will sale its stake in openai or just drain openai from resources and people until it will disappear.
I have no idea what MS is doing with AI internally, but predictive text is only one of the avenues towards AGI which sure seems to be the direction OpenAI (and everyone else currently looking to sell a product) are going. There are certainly other directions MS can go in the same field without putting all their eggs in one basket.
Watch them flat out buy OpenAI then just reinstate these guys.
If OpenAI wanted to sell out, they wouldn’t have fired Altman
They’re only 2% short of being able to do that. I think Microsoft has a 49% stake.
Sam has to own at least a percent or two. Even if he doesn’t bring enough shares to the table to give Microsoft the edge they need, I’m guessing he’s friendly enough with a few shareholders to get them the rest of the way.
I think Sam famously has had a 0% stake
Huh, that’s interesting. But I still assume he must have a good enough relationship with enough investors to convince at least 2% of shareholders to back Microsoft if they were partnering with him on a resolution.
As much as I’d love to see them back in OpenAI, I don’t think Emmett Shear will give up.
I have a soft spot for Greg since he was the one who introduced the world to GPT 4 on that developer livestream
@silencioso competing with themselves isn’t that weird, for example Pfizer makes both Viagra and its generic competitor Avigra.
Just like cereal companies with name brands like fruit loops will make fruit spins. Why not take profit on the lower end of the market?
And there are many other examples too.
A lot of car manufacturers have brands for the upper class. Like Mercedes -> Maybach, Toyota -> Lexus, Seat -> Cupra. And tyre manufacturers have lower-end brands, like Michelin -> Kleber. Or, even better: a lot of store budget brands for milk, cheese, sausages etc. are manufactured by a big name brand, it’s right on the packaging with the little letters at the bottom. (Manufactured by: XYZ Big Name Brand Ltd.)
I had a teacher in high school, many decades ago, who had owned an orange juice processor. He explained that the generic store brand got the start and end of production runs; name brand got the middle.
Orange juice in particular is a very brand loyalty specific one because oranges naturally do not have a consistent flavor. The main distinguishing flavor between different brands is an additive each brand puts in to make it taste more like their brand of orange juice.
That’s got to be the lowest effort generic name in existence. “Ah just shift one of the letters to the start and let’s knock off early”
Same jacket, different pocket