Comment by medler
3 years ago
This article appears to be their source: https://archive.ph/wQOhC
> Alongside rifts over strategy, board members also contended with Altman’s entrepreneurial ambitions. Altman has been looking to raise tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to create an AI chip startup to compete with processors made by Nvidia Corp., according to a person with knowledge of the investment proposal. Altman was courting SoftBank Group Corp. chairman Masayoshi Son for a multibillion-dollar investment in a new company to make AI-oriented hardware in partnership with former Apple designer Jony Ive. Sutskever and his allies on the OpenAI board chafed at Altman’s efforts to raise funds off of OpenAI’s name, and they harbored concerns that the new businesses might not share the same governance model as OpenAI, the person said.
So he was looking to build his own AI chips with a company he owned and supply them to OpenAI? And enlist SoftBank for funding? Isn’t this very similar to Adam Neumans tactics?
I don’t think it’s fair to jump to that conclusion, since he apparently never raised the money, founded the company, or developed the chips. The worst we can say is that his attention was divided and his goals may not have been aligned with OpenAI’s. And of course, I say this assuming the anonymous source is correct, which may not be the case.
Attentions divided seems to be the thing these days.
Have you really made it as a SV CEO if you're not at least a 3-ring Tres Commas Club member?
Popular picks seem to be any 3 of ad scaffolds, money processing, rent/gig vigs, energy, digital ledgers, big statistics, profit|altruism mashups, and, of course, the final frontier.
Other peoples Ideas and other peoples money, pretty on topic.
Isnt that how most ai is built anyway? Taking what’s not theirs and selling it for profit?
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Ideas and money are cheap and plentiful. Execution is everything and from what little I know about Altman that seems to be his strength.
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This seems way, way more reasonable than WeWork.
Maybe if Altman bought every datacenter and then nudged OpenAI toward renting them out, or if Altman bought the "Open" trademark and licensed it to OpenAI for a million dollars or whatever.
> This seems way, way more reasonable than WeWork.
Really? Altman advertised and marketed himself as someone with no vested financial interest in OpenAI, but then he's going around creating companies with foreign states and companies that will then sell to the non-profit he's CEO of?
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> Adam Neumans tactics?
Neuman's still at it with Flow? In line with that, more impetus (not that he needs any) for Sam to go ahead and do it anyway.
this is why I never bought the "he has no equity in OpenAI, he's got no incentive to go against their charter". There were always plenty of ways for him to make a lot of money without direct equity, Microsoft could have gifted him some shares as part of their agreement to the OpenAI partnership. And now you have stuff like this. Wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to get fired so he could start his own thing and poach OpenAI talent while looking like the good guy