undefined | Better HN

0 pointss1artibartfast2y ago0 comments

>OpenAI had abandoned its public good mission and had morphed into a psuedo-private for-profit.

>They should be fine with the overwhelming volume of investment available to them.

>Another way to look at it: How could this be wrong, given that their objective was not profit, and they can raise money easily with or without Altman?

This wasn't just some cultural shift. The board of OpenAI created a seperate for profit legal entity in 2019. The for-profit legal entity received overwhelming investment from Microsoft to make money. Microsoft, Early investors, and Employees all have a stake and want returns from this for profit company.

The separate non-profit OpenAI has a major problem on its hands if it thinks its goals are no longer aligned with the co-owners of the for-profit company.

0 comments

cthalupa2y ago

The thing here is that the structure of these companies and the operating agreement for the for-profit LLC all effectively mean that everyone is warned going in that the for-profit is beholden to the mission of the non-profit and that there might be zero return on investment and that there may never be profit at all.

The board answers to the charter, and are legally obligated to act in the interest of the mission outlined in the charter. Their charter says "OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) [...] benefits all of humanity" - not do that "unless it'd make more money for our for-profit subsidiary to focus on commercializing GPT"

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse