6 ms·

Mustafa Suleyman of Inflection AI Joins Microsoft

52 points by arunsivadasan 3y ago

arunsivadasan 3y ago
Is this an acquisition?
- sergers 3y ago
  I don't think so? Inflection announced new ceo and changes today as well. The article seems to mention several employees jumped ship with Mustafa.
  - karmasimida 3y ago
    I think in a podcast or so just months ago, he talked about how he planned for Infections to stay in the race for next few years, and seemed to be excited about it Wonder what drives this sudden change
    - airstrike 3y ago
      People say whatever they need to say
      - karmasimida 3y ago
        Apparently. I am more curious about the internal fight that leads to this, it must be glorious
gigel82 3y ago
Interesting, Mikhail Parakhin, CEO of Advertising, where Windows is reporting these days is also moving under the new org. I wonder what Microsoft's plans are for Windows now that the whole thing reports to Copilot and Ads.
- ngomez 3y ago
  Not the whole thing: a lot of the Windows org chart is still under Rajesh Jha in Experiences + Devices, or scattered around Azure with Scott Guthrie. But they've already been pushing Windows Copilot and Bing Ads and widgets, so I imagine the plan is more of the same.
  - gigel82 3y ago
    Mikhail reported to Rajesh Jha and I guess now he'll report to Mustafa. Mikhail's official title is CEO of Advertising and the entire Windows Engineering org reports to him. I just asked some MS friends who confirmed.
- jgalt212 3y ago
  > I wonder what Microsoft's plans are for Windows now that the whole thing reports to Copilot and Ads. oh, jeez.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jmount 3y ago
> There is no franchise value in our industry and the work and product innovation we drive at this moment will define the next decade and beyond. So no bird in hand, but the two in the bush are worth more?
eclectic29 3y ago
This is really bad news for Microsoft culture. See https://archive.is/ZuvYu https://archive.is/ZuvYu. Also from Wikipedia: In August 2019, Suleyman was placed on administrative leave following allegations of bullying employees.[17][18] The company hired an external lawyer to investigate, and shortly thereafter Suleyman left to take a VP role at parent company Google. An email circulated by DeepMind's leadership to staff after the story broke, as well as additional details published by Business Insider, said Suleyman's "management style fell short" of expected standards.[19][20].
- whoevercares 3y ago
  Bill Gates used to call people idiots to their face all the time
  - stephencoyner 3y ago
    What I’ve heard from people who have presented to him is he liked to say “that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard” At the same time, it seemed to draw results
    - whoevercares 2y ago
      That’s damn true
  - belter 2y ago
    Was that before or after getting into philanthropy foundations? :-)
blackhawkC17 3y ago
Feels off to jump ship shortly after raising $1.3 billion from investors (including Microsoft).. https://inflection.ai/inflection-ai-announces-1-3-billion-of-funding https://inflection.ai/inflection-ai-announces-1-3-billion-of...
adamnemecek 3y ago
Was he ousted?
freefaler 3y ago
He's not a technical guy, it's not like Ilya or Geohot. So it's not that important in the grand scheme of things... From wikipedia: After dropping out of university at 19, Suleyman helped start the Muslim Youth Helpline[6][7] with his university friend Mohammed Mamdani,[5] a telephone counselling service. The organization would later become one of the largest mental health support services for Muslims in the UK.[5] Suleyman subsequently worked as a policy officer on human rights for Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, before going on to start Reos Partners, a ‘systemic change’ consultancy that uses methods from conflict resolution to navigate social problems. As a negotiator and facilitator, Mustafa worked for a wide range of clients such as the United Nations, the Dutch government, and the World Wide Fund for Nature.[8][9]
- fakedang 3y ago
  To be fair, Sam Altman is no tech guy either. Although you could also retort that Microsoft have no need for another management guy other than Nadella.
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 3y ago
    Altman is not a deep PhD-level expert researcher in Machine Learning, but you could be a lot less technical than a Stanford CS dropout who built a tech co as his first swing. He's not exactly a management consultant LARPing being technical.
    - fakedang 3y ago
      I think Suleyman is the same kind of guy. At least from what I've read on him, he seems to have some technical chops, even if he isn't a PhD expert.
frabcus 3y ago
Inflection blog post about their new CEO, and their view of the change, and new API access to their model via Azure: https://inflection.ai/the-new-inflection https://inflection.ai/the-new-inflection Also it is worth signing up to and trying out Pi, and talking to it about something emotional. It has a different tone both audio and what it says to other LLMs: https://pi.ai https://pi.ai API access to that does give more options for people making apps, it is different.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
Related Inflection post: The New Inflection https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39757368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39757368
bionhoward 3y ago
I can’t stand the way he tweets while ignoring the inflection customer noncompete nightmare. Maybe I’m just out of touch with corpo world as a solo founder guy but damn wtf is everyone at OpenAI/Microsoft/Anthropic/Inflection/Nvidia/Google smoking that they think it’s OK to claim fair use in learning from everyone then forbid others from using their technology to make AI/ML stuff ? Am I wrong to be continually shocked about these legal terms? IMHO, hypocrisy is a priori unreasonable. If you read this and care about AI, then please consider switching to Mistral because their CEO actively deleted the customer noncompete and they are the only option with no such term.
- ycsux 2y ago
  Will do that. I hate the way OpenAI can't say where their training data is from, even
__lbracket__ 3y ago
Li'l muzzi had trouble in the startup !!

52 points by arunsivadasan 3y ago

arunsivadasan 3y ago

Is this an acquisition?

sergers 3y ago
I don't think so? Inflection announced new ceo and changes today as well. The article seems to mention several employees jumped ship with Mustafa.
- karmasimida 3y ago
  I think in a podcast or so just months ago, he talked about how he planned for Infections to stay in the race for next few years, and seemed to be excited about it Wonder what drives this sudden change
  - airstrike 3y ago
    People say whatever they need to say
    - karmasimida 3y ago
      Apparently. I am more curious about the internal fight that leads to this, it must be glorious

gigel82 3y ago

Interesting, Mikhail Parakhin, CEO of Advertising, where Windows is reporting these days is also moving under the new org. I wonder what Microsoft's plans are for Windows now that the whole thing reports to Copilot and Ads.

ngomez 3y ago
Not the whole thing: a lot of the Windows org chart is still under Rajesh Jha in Experiences + Devices, or scattered around Azure with Scott Guthrie. But they've already been pushing Windows Copilot and Bing Ads and widgets, so I imagine the plan is more of the same.
- gigel82 3y ago
  Mikhail reported to Rajesh Jha and I guess now he'll report to Mustafa. Mikhail's official title is CEO of Advertising and the entire Windows Engineering org reports to him. I just asked some MS friends who confirmed.
jgalt212 3y ago
> I wonder what Microsoft's plans are for Windows now that the whole thing reports to Copilot and Ads. oh, jeez.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jmount 3y ago

> There is no franchise value in our industry and the work and product innovation we drive at this moment will define the next decade and beyond. So no bird in hand, but the two in the bush are worth more?

eclectic29 3y ago

This is really bad news for Microsoft culture. See https://archive.is/ZuvYu https://archive.is/ZuvYu. Also from Wikipedia: In August 2019, Suleyman was placed on administrative leave following allegations of bullying employees.[17][18] The company hired an external lawyer to investigate, and shortly thereafter Suleyman left to take a VP role at parent company Google. An email circulated by DeepMind's leadership to staff after the story broke, as well as additional details published by Business Insider, said Suleyman's "management style fell short" of expected standards.[19][20].

whoevercares 3y ago
Bill Gates used to call people idiots to their face all the time
- stephencoyner 3y ago
  What I’ve heard from people who have presented to him is he liked to say “that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard” At the same time, it seemed to draw results
  - whoevercares 2y ago
    That’s damn true
- belter 2y ago
  Was that before or after getting into philanthropy foundations? :-)

blackhawkC17 3y ago

Feels off to jump ship shortly after raising $1.3 billion from investors (including Microsoft).. https://inflection.ai/inflection-ai-announces-1-3-billion-of-funding https://inflection.ai/inflection-ai-announces-1-3-billion-of...

adamnemecek 3y ago

Was he ousted?

freefaler 3y ago

He's not a technical guy, it's not like Ilya or Geohot. So it's not that important in the grand scheme of things... From wikipedia: After dropping out of university at 19, Suleyman helped start the Muslim Youth Helpline[6][7] with his university friend Mohammed Mamdani,[5] a telephone counselling service. The organization would later become one of the largest mental health support services for Muslims in the UK.[5] Suleyman subsequently worked as a policy officer on human rights for Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, before going on to start Reos Partners, a ‘systemic change’ consultancy that uses methods from conflict resolution to navigate social problems. As a negotiator and facilitator, Mustafa worked for a wide range of clients such as the United Nations, the Dutch government, and the World Wide Fund for Nature.[8][9]

fakedang 3y ago
To be fair, Sam Altman is no tech guy either. Although you could also retort that Microsoft have no need for another management guy other than Nadella.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 3y ago
  Altman is not a deep PhD-level expert researcher in Machine Learning, but you could be a lot less technical than a Stanford CS dropout who built a tech co as his first swing. He's not exactly a management consultant LARPing being technical.
  - fakedang 3y ago
    I think Suleyman is the same kind of guy. At least from what I've read on him, he seems to have some technical chops, even if he isn't a PhD expert.

frabcus 3y ago

Inflection blog post about their new CEO, and their view of the change, and new API access to their model via Azure: https://inflection.ai/the-new-inflection https://inflection.ai/the-new-inflection Also it is worth signing up to and trying out Pi, and talking to it about something emotional. It has a different tone both audio and what it says to other LLMs: https://pi.ai https://pi.ai API access to that does give more options for people making apps, it is different.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

Related Inflection post: The New Inflection https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39757368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39757368

bionhoward 3y ago

I can’t stand the way he tweets while ignoring the inflection customer noncompete nightmare. Maybe I’m just out of touch with corpo world as a solo founder guy but damn wtf is everyone at OpenAI/Microsoft/Anthropic/Inflection/Nvidia/Google smoking that they think it’s OK to claim fair use in learning from everyone then forbid others from using their technology to make AI/ML stuff ? Am I wrong to be continually shocked about these legal terms? IMHO, hypocrisy is a priori unreasonable. If you read this and care about AI, then please consider switching to Mistral because their CEO actively deleted the customer noncompete and they are the only option with no such term.

ycsux 2y ago
Will do that. I hate the way OpenAI can't say where their training data is from, even

__lbracket__ 3y ago

Li'l muzzi had trouble in the startup !!