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Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
- AugustoCAS 3y agoI find a bit odd that MS didn't have a couple of people in the board of directors, who I assume accepted Sam Altman resignation (and signed the severance package). Edit: I just read he was fired, but the point remains.
- abi 3y agoPer my understanding, the board oversees the non-profit which owns the for-profit entity which Microsoft invested in. It's not clear to me how the non-profit board was picked but equity holders in the for-profit don't have a say on the matter.
- alchemist1e9 3y agoAre all the rumors on social media sites considered out of bound on HN? They seem fairly plausible given the known circumstantial evidence floating around.
- CamperBob2 3y agoSkunkworks in the basement achieved AGI 6 months ago. Board left in the dark until they got an eight-figure electric bill. Now the entire company is in the dark. I mean, if they don't come out and explain what happened, they can't be surprised when people "hallucinate" all kinds of random, preposterous explanations.
- crop_rotation 3y agoWhat are the rumors? In this case I think nothing is out of bound, including Skynet in the building.
- alchemist1e9 3y agoThey related to his personal and familial life and are about as bad as it gets, well apart from murder and torture or something, but fairly close.
- crop_rotation 3y agoI think those are already posted 100 times on the main thread, and discussed in detail. None of that is new so can't be the reason for something like this.
- alchemist1e9 3y agoI understood it as there are additional and ongoing incidents and possible board was given hard evidence of such.
- magneticnorth 3y agoAre you willing to be more specific, or link to such a discussion?
- alchemist1e9 3y agoNot really. It’s all so torrid. More interesting would be anything that points to a different reason or evidence the action was related to professional misconduct not personal. The problem is all the suggestions so far are too dissimilar from when LLMs “hallucinate”
- runevault 3y agoThe wording of the letter from the board sounded like he was keeping company details from them to me, not personal matters. Maybe I'm wrong but that was the impression I was under reading it.
- hfjjbf 3y ago[dead]
- speedylight 3y ago> Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman just a minute before the news was shared with the world, according to a person familiar with the situation. Well this probably disproves the theory that it was a power grab by Microsoft. It didn’t make too much sense anyway since they already have access to tech behind GPT and Microsoft doesn’t necessarily need the clout behind the OpenAI brand.
- wly_cdgr 3y agoYou can't be serious. You think that Microsoft themselves saying they didn't know DISPROVES that it was a covert power grab by them? Have you heard of "lying"? I'm not saying I think it WAS that, but come on.
- aduffy 3y agoThe "coup by MSFT" conspiracy theory made no sense. Microsoft has an insanely good deal with OpenAI: * Exclusive access to resell OpenAI's technology and keep nearly all of that revenue for themselves, both cloud and services * Receive 75% of OpenAI's profits up to $1 trillion All they had to do is not rock the boat and let the golden goose keep laying eggs. A massive disruption like this, so soon after DevDay would not fit that strategy. My guess at this point is financial malfeasance, either failing to present a deal to the board or OpenAI has been in financial straits and he was covering it up.
- IAmNotACellist 3y agoOpenAI shouldn't even be making a profit, as it's a 501(c)3 charity. The whole umbrella for-profit corp they formed when they became popular should be illegal, and is clearly immoral.
- abigail95 3y agoIllegal to restructure a business?
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- woeirua 3y agoSomething big and bad was going on at OpenAI, and if I were MSFT I would be very nervous about the money that you’ve invested in OpenAI right now.
- WestCoastJustin 3y agoNot really the money but expected return on the money from all these features being rolled out. You can 100% bet there was major estimations made on return on investment. Everything they are releasing has some AI magic on it now. The last thing you want to see is chaos in a company you're betting the farm on.
- thawkth 3y agoI feel like as tech focused as HN is, a lot of people are missing how massive MS’s non financial investment in GPT is. They just ended Ignite, their huge IT conference - and have revealed baking GPT into EVERYTHING they do. Everything. The closing keynote was the massive engineering effort put in to running LLMs at scale - for MS themselves and customers. MS is all in on GPT, including releasing a no code and low code custom GPT builder for orgs this week.
- Terretta 3y agoOr not nervous at all: “we’re committed to delivering all of this to our customers ... We have ... full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda...” I'd argue this is signaling they have the IP / source code / models / etc. (Which, for what it's worth, is common in substantial partnership agreements.)
- serf 3y ago>I'd argue this is signaling they have the IP / source code / models / etc. I think that just signals that they have a firm business agreement with OAI regardless of what Altman might be doing. with a product like chatGPT, especially given the nature of how it has been presented thus far (our servers, our API, your account on those servers) , it seems extraordinarily dangerous to treat it like a common partnership agreement.
- sharkweek 3y agoI sense a Netflix documentary is already in the works! But seriously, this muddies the water even more. I assumed the Microsoft deal being based on some false pretense was the reason this was all happening. I guess that could still be true and the board is trying to protect themselves from whatever else is about to come out.
- duxup 3y agoNetflix documentary… so fiction?
- goostavos 3y ago30 minutes of content spread over 8 hour long episodes
- iainmerrick 3y agoDon't worry, it's only 4 episodes. They pre-cancelled the last 4.
- WestCoastJustin 3y agoLink to MS statement https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/11/17/a-statement-from-microsoft-chairman-and-ceo-satya-nadella/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/11/17/a-statement-from... In my opinion, I'd say the shortness and lack of details backs up the story that they had no idea. You'd see way more words if a marketing department had it's hands on something like this. This was 100% a get something out asap job.
- paxys 3y agoYup this is definitely a "our stock has fallen 2% on the news, hurry up and say something to investors!" kind of letter.
- SilasX 3y agoJust for once I’d like to see such a statement look like, “You sheep probably want a comment on today’s news. We’re not doing that. We’re just content to buy up all the shares you’re panic-dumping. Looking forward to flipping them back to you next week when you panic in the other direction.” (Assuming they have some plan that gives them the flexibility to trade shares directly on the market like that. I think $GME had something like this?) Edit: And, of course, actually mean it, unlike Caroline Ellison and the $22 FTT: https://twitter.com/carolinecapital/status/1589287457975304193 https://twitter.com/carolinecapital/status/15892874579753041...
- bmitc 3y agoIt's hilarious that people are commenting about Microsoft being "down". It's up over a $100 per share since the beginning of the year and at an all-time high.
- jliptzin 3y agoRetail didn’t move MSFT stock yesterday on that news. It was HFT bots reacting to the news. Nobody panicked.
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- valine 3y agoIf anything this is a power grab by the board away from Microsoft. Optimistically, this could be an attempt to return OpenAI to its original status as a true non-profit company. OpenAI lost most of its openness under Sam. They needed the Microsoft investment before GPT scaling was proven out. I imagine many entities would be willing to put money into a truly open research lab given OpenAI’s track record.
- speedylight 3y agoMicrosoft gave them billions of dollars and access to lots of high performance compute, why would the board want to jeopardize that now?
- whoiscroberts 3y agoI’d try to get to the source of the compute, partner with AMD and Nvidia to build out DCs architected from the ground up to train and serve LLM’s. Get rid of Microsoft…
- ffgjgf1 3y ago> Get rid of Microsoft… Which is going to be hard considering they promised MS a 49% stake in OpenAI. Which is something AMD/Nvidia will have to take in to account before agreeing to any partnership.
- beejiu 3y ago"Gave" is the operative term here. It only matters what will Microsoft offer in the future. OpenAI (the board that made this decision) is still ultimately a non-profit, so it's possible that interests might not be aligned.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago> so it's possible that interests might not be aligned. Tough luck, considering all the obligations they have to MS now.
- paxys 3y agoSo much for the "Microsoft wanted Sam Altman out because he wouldn't sell OpenAI to them" theory.
- duxup 3y agoDon’t doubt conspiracy theorists ability to declare evidence to the contrary as all part of the plan.
- tsunamifury 3y agoI can tell HNers haven't worked at the executive level. Executives can and do do things all the time without informing their PR departments ahead of time. Often the feigned surprise is intended. "Im shocked to see gambling in this establishment! Shocked I tell you!"
- b33j0r 3y agoAs a large language model of a borg-haha we mean, board! I assure you that sentience is a physical process, akin to HUMAN METABOLISM You have nothing to be surprised about, Mr. Turing-jokester.
- eatbitseveryday 3y agodupe? doesn't say much beyond what we learn in the actual release https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611
- samspenc 3y agoWell the first sentence in this news piece adds a lot more color to the official press release and stands out on its own: "Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman just a minute before the news was shared with the world, according to a person familiar with the situation."
- grpt 3y ago> according to a person familiar with the situation. Just a rumor. Zero chance someone at MS wasn't already aware.
- softwaredoug 3y agoUsually news orgs don’t put their reputation on the line unless they feel there’s some substance
- ssnistfajen 3y agoBloomberg got away with conjuring The Big Hack story by intentionally mispresenting anecdotes and their reputation didn't take a single dent.
- softwaredoug 3y agoIt definitely happens, but its not readily in their interest to turn themselves into just a rumor mill.
- exitb 3y agoIf you’d ask around yesterday, every sane person would say there’s zero change Altman will be soon fired on the spot. We’re already past that point.
- samspenc 3y agoConfirmed by a second news source https://www.semafor.com/article/11/17/2023/openai-board-fires-sam-altman https://www.semafor.com/article/11/17/2023/openai-board-fire... "Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, was blindsided by Altman’s firing, Axios reported and Semafor confirmed."
- Captainmack 3y agoThis goes against all the theories saying it was Satya that forced him out or was otherwise some back room deal with MS. sama’s generic “looking forward to what’s next” response also doesn’t give me confidence it won’t be a bigger scandal
- tsunamifury 3y agoI'm pressing X really hard to doubt.
- dougmwne 3y agoI think this strengthens my theory that the AI safety true believers wrestled control away from the entrepreneurs. The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements. Microsoft, who just finished building OpenAI’s models into every core product, was blindsided. The chairman of the OpenAI board, Greg Brockman, another startup exec was pushed out at the same time. Eric Schmidt, with his own AI startup lab start singing Sam’s praises and saying “what’s next?” My guess is that Microsoft is about to get fucked and Eric Schmidt is going to pop open a bottle of expensive champagne tonight.
- __loam 3y agoYeah I think this makes the most sense
- bananapub 3y ago> The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements. "screams butt hurt"? the board put out a blog post saying the CEO had lied so badly they'd insta-sacked him.
- dougmwne 3y agoIt’s quite rare for these board communications to say anything of substance at all. You let the PR folks work their magic and manage the narrative. This reads like 4 people out of their depth desperately trying to justify themselves. I would not be surprised if it turns out Microsoft has a multibillion dollar, complex financial instrument axe on the necks of these people by Monday forcing a sale or a new management structure that gives them more control.
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoThe board of OpenAI has their hands on the ultimate self-destruct button, though. If M$ made a power play, worse case scenario they end up with ownership of the for-profit OpenAI, but they'd still have no control of the non-profit, which owns the intellectual property. If the deal goes sideways, the board of OpenAI (the nonprofit) could just dump everything onto the open internet. All M$ has is a substantial but minority stake in a company that the non-profit OpenAI owns all the beef of.
- swalsh 3y agoGreg Brockman has also left: https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725667410387378559 https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725667410387378559
- pphysch 3y agoWhat's with the lowercase? I think it's cute if someone is being deliberately low-effort, or trying to present that way, but IMO it's cringe to use it for consequential official statements like this.
- meibo 3y agoThis is what aging millenials do to make it seem like they don't really care too much about what's going on and that they're 20 years younger.
- Racing0461 3y agoThankfully LLMs aren't that much secret sauce. Hope another company / open source can keep them on their feet.
- devin 3y agoThis feels like the beginning of the end of a hype cycle to me.
- SheinhardtWigCo 3y agoOne "person familiar" is inappropriate sourcing for something so consequential. Not a good look for Axios.
- broken_clock 3y agoIn journalist speak, that means "credible person I know who would get fired if I said their name." It's probably literally an exec on the OpenAI/Microsoft partnership. The alternative to "a person familiar" is us as readers never get this information at all.
- robbyking 3y agoI think a lot of people don't understand how anonymous sourcing works in jounalism.
- SpicyLemonZest 3y agoIt's hard. I'm instinctively inclined to believe this story, but from first principles, why should I trust that Axios has adequately vetted this source? All I know about them is that lots of people in my circles send me their articles, I've never seen or conducted a review of their journalistic practices. Obviously thinking about it this way would cause me to miss or disbelieve a lot of true stories, but it doesn't seem right to say I should trust every outlet I see widely posted either.
- SheinhardtWigCo 3y agoI know what it means and I agree it's probably an exec. The issue is that the premise - "Microsoft Corporation didn't know thing X at point in time Y" - is essentially unverifiable gossip, yet is presented here as fact
- twixfel 3y agoBelieve it or don't, newspapers report on things which cannot be immediately verified all the time. Get over it.
- taftster 3y agoMicrosoft has a "Cloud + AI" division [1]. I wouldn't be surprised to see Sam Altman at or near the top of that organization come Monday. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_engineering_groups#Cloud_+_AI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_engineering_groups#C...
- bmitc 3y agoWhy does Microsoft need him? Microsoft has some of the foremost researchers and research divisions in the world and have successfully demonstrated their ability to evolve as a business. Altman's background doesn't seem remotely enough to have such a high-level position at a company like Microsoft.
- Cacti 3y agolol there’s thousands of Sams out there, he’s not that special, and he’s certainly not indispensable. I don’t know why so many here are struggling to accept that this guy fucked up, lied to his boss, got caught, and got fired for it, and that’s all there is to it. boards will tolerate many things, but willfully lying to them about anything material is not one of them. a ceo who won’t tell the board the truth is a ceo who thinks they are more important than the company. some boards don’t care, because they are already bought off with equity, but this board doesn’t get equity…
- astrange 3y agoThe chairman of the board quit with him, though. Doesn't seem like he had a problem.
- elamje 3y agoMicrosoft (with thousands of lawyers on staff) invests $10B in a company and has no power or leverage over the decisions of a non-profit board headed by several names no one has heard of. Come on. No way Microsoft’s team does a deal like that with 0 power or knowledge in a situation like this. That’s ludicrous. Edit: the only case I can see for MSFT being truly blindsided is as follows. Elon is behind it. Sam and Elon have their breakup. Sam seems to win. They close the deal with MSFT, all is good. But Elon is intimately familiar with the corporate structure and all moves made historically, maybe even has some evidence of wrong-doing. There is probably only 1 person in the valley that could pressure the non profit to oust Sam (and by extension Greg) AND provide the financial/legal/power backing to see it through. It takes a lot money and influence to do this from the outside. That is really the only scenario I could see MSFT truly being blindsided for getting out-maneuvered by a dinky non-profit board.
- crop_rotation 3y agoThis all feels very stupid on their part now looking at the board member names but I never saw this point raised before on HN. I guess nobody could predict this including MSFT.
- junofan 3y agoThe real reason could be something most people would find incredibly stupid. Mira coup attempt or something similar.
- crop_rotation 3y agoI think the new CEO is mostly irrelevant here, and it feels more like a board coup where one third of the board is ousted.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ryanSrich 3y agoMicrosoft invested $10b and owns 49% of OpenAi. Yet they don’t have a board seat? Thats genuinely insane, and seems like a huge issue.
- xxpor 3y agoThey invested in the for-profit, not the non-profit. The non-profit controls the for-profit.
- samspenc 3y agoThere are now 4 people left in the OpenAI non-profit board, after the ouster of both Sam and Greg today. 3 of the 4 remaining are virtual unknowns, and they control the fate of OpenAI, both the non-profit and the for-profit. Insane.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jprd 3y agoI think it is a little more insane that there is even a "for-profit" bit here. The whole thing has a fugazi smell to it TBH.
- ffgjgf1 3y agoThey couldn’t afford anything they are doing now if they had stayed a non profit.
- soderfoo 3y agoI would say we're likely to see some governance and board composition changes made soon. Honestly, I would expect more from Microsoft's attorneys, whether this was overlooked or allowed. Maybe OAI had superior leverage and MS was desperate to get in to AI.
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- baron816 3y agoI wonder if this is one of those pivotal moments in history where OpenAI collapses or fades and Google or someone else dominates the future of AI, and we’re all left wondering “what if”.
- CPLX 3y agoBecause the loopt guy got fired?
- capableweb 3y agoUnless Google (or someone else) outright acquires GPT4 and future GPT research, it's unlikely that someone will suddenly overtake OpenAI. From what we've seen, no one is close to GPT4, sometimes not even GPT3.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dmix 3y agoGoogle didn't 'suddenly' beat out the search competition either. You don't need to. Decline takes time and there are always seeds and early signals.
- jbm 3y agoYes it did. There was literally no one at the level of Google when it came out. I still remember Infoseek and Yahoo, both were garbage compared to Goog. I know they aren't doing their best right now, but there is no need to rewrite history. Google was always superior to their search competitors, which is why it is so sad to see their current situation.
- timthorn 3y agoThey might have been superior but it took a while for users to switch. Obviously some went across very quickly but AltaVista et al were still viable for a while.
- dang 3y agoRelated ongoing thread: Satya Nadella's Statement on OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38312355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38312355 and for completeness I suppose (though at the moment they're #1 and #2): OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611 Greg Brockman quits OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38312704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38312704
- palisade 3y ago[flagged]
- brucethemoose2 3y agoRandom aside, but I like Axios. The site is mercifully clean (just turn off your adblocker and see what I mean). Their scoops are good. The format is succinct and efficient but not "dumb" like a short twitter thread. What's more, none of this has changed over the years, somehow avoiding enshittification.
- Varloom 3y agoThere goes their almost $13B investment down the drain. Both masterminds of ChatGPT have left the company. Feels like Nokia 2.0
- hm-nah 3y agoI don’t believe it. I watched OpenAI DevDay live last week (wasn’t it?). I immediately noticed how Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was treating (slighting so subtly in my mind) Satya Nadela, the CEO of Microsoft. The last this he said was: “I look forward to building AGI with you” or the like… I’m betting that he insulted Satya at that event or upshowed him, etc. and that’s why he’s kicking rocks…
- lannisterstark 3y agoYou're making a lot of projections here...
- hm-nah 3y agoThere it is!! There it is!! “I look forward to building AGI with you.” vs. “Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world.” https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/11/17/a-statement-from-microsoft-chairman-and-ceo-satya-nadella/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/11/17/a-statement-from...
- robgibbons 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9CGm7rgilE&lc=Ugzcn8AOCsMHD65tRvh4AaABAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9CGm7rgilE&lc=Ugzcn8AOCsMHD... This comment on the OpenAI DevDay video aged really well: > @JustinHalford: Some odd tension coming from Sam. I’m sensing some tension in the Open AI/Microsoft partnership.
- zucker42 3y agoThe board who fired Sam Altman is the board of OpenAI Inc., the nonprofit. Microsoft has no ownership stake in OpenAI Inc.
- _xivi 3y ago> Microsoft has no ownership stake in OpenAI Inc. Microsoft has an influence over fking governments. It doesn't need to have an official board seat. It doesn't even need to ask what they want directly. It's enough for people in power to be aligned with their interests. I'm not saying that's the case here, just pointing that having no ownership or board member in an entity doesn't rule out having power or influence.
- tunesmith 3y agoI dunno, if they were behind it, wouldn't they have an interest in claiming they had no idea? And if they weren't and were truly blindsided, would they have an interest in admitting it?
- vegabook 3y agoMicrosoft should now hire Altman in the ultimate double bluff.
- asimpleusecase 3y agoMy guess is Sam’s New AI venture Humane has either taken key tech from OpenAI? Key talent or in some other way trod on something internal. One thing to consider is that by making AI wearable it is a step toward embodiment- which has always been a problem for AI learning as it does not interact with the real world. Getting live video, audio and sensor data from humans moving through space doing things in context will be amazing data to train the next bump in AI toward AGI.
- j-bos 3y agoSay hello to Manna: https://marshallbrain.com/manna https://marshallbrain.com/manna
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoI get the impression it was a combination of at least two things: 1) A long standing disagreement between AI-safety and AI-profiteering with Ilya on one side and Altman on the other. Ilya (board member) was the one who told Altman to attend video call, then told him he was fired. 2) Some side dealing from Altman - raising new VC funds - maybe in conflict of interest with OpenAI, that was the final straw. There also appears to be a lot of rumors about Altman's personal conduct, but even if true that doesn't seem to jibe with the official statement over the reason for his firing, or Brockman and others resigning in unison - more reflection of the internal rift.
- aranelsurion 3y agoWow, no insincere "spending more time with my family" or "heartfelt thanks to him for his contributions" or something? It's both refreshing and very surprising at the same time. I guess it's either a really bad table flip or there will be more to hear soon.
- Sosh101 3y ago"according to a person familiar with the situation."
- hilux 3y agoI don't know anything about Microsoft's relationships with OpenAI. What I do know, having worked for many large organizations, is that reading the daily press (or listening to the news) is a terrible way to get accurate real-time facts about current corporate happenings. Related: check out Gell-Man amnesia effect.
- wavesounds 3y agoWhy doesn't Microsoft just hire Sam and Greg and put them in charge of AI?
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- electric_dreams 3y ago[dead]
- kristjansson 3y agoSo MSFT put $10bn into OpenAI, presumably at least in part on the strength of sama’s leadership. But if the stories are to be believed, a huge chunk of that investment was in Azure credits, and investment into new Azure GPU DCs/clusters for OAI to spend those credits on. If MSFT doesn’t like this move, why wouldn’t they just … not honor those credits? Or grant more to a successor entity? Does OAI have its own warehouse of GPUs separate from Azure? Seems like a very dangerous game for Ilya to play.
- PeterStuer 3y ago"full access to everything" feels like a shot across the bow sending a very clear signal to the new board that it should not attempt to limit access to rapid commercial (or other) exploitation of any research results emanating from OpenAI for whatever reason given, be it 'alignment', 'safety' or disproportionate exclusive leverage running afoul of OpenAI's original mission.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman Microsoft, while a large investor (who has already reaped large rewards from that investment) explicitly has no governance role in any of the OpenAI entities, including the one at the very bottom of the stack of four that they are invested in, and this was a decision by the board governs the nonprofit at the top of the stack about personnel matters, so there is no reason to think that Microsoft would be notified in advance.
- sebastianconcpt 3y agoMicrosoft being Microsoft? Sounds like a political move to have greater power surface over the AI sector. A normal day in a monopolist afternoon.
- nojvek 3y agoHedgefunds are betting the on AI and tech companies. Without the top 5 tech companies, S&P500 has lackluster growth. Microsoft has added trillions to its cap. The statement “we have all the access we need” is a powerful statement. To both OpenAI board and investors. OpenAI is built on Azure compute. MS has invested billions of their own, they’re building their own chips now. Essentially Microsoft is saying you can burn OpenAI to the ground, “we have everything we need” to win! - the data, the compute, the algorithms, the engineers, the capital and the market. This is a way bigger blow to OpenAI than Microsoft.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]