Comment by yafbum
2 years ago
The premise of founding OpenAI as a nonprofit with "nobler" goals than making money was that it would be a strong magnet to the right talent. Going to work for Microsoft (or any other tech company for that matter), from that point of view, is like crossing over to the dark side of the force. It will be interesting to see how many of OpenAI's employees were there because of its nonprofit status, and how many were there in spite of it.
I suspect very little people joined OpenAI for their noble non-profit mission after they introduced their for-profit subsidiary. OpenAI compensation was and still is top notch. Compare it to Signal, which is a true non-profit (and salaries are a lot lower).
Nonprofit status relates to the absence of investor payouts, and doesn't fundamentally have much to do with pay levels. Some employees can be on occasion willing to accept lower pay when the motives are altruistic, but most employees at nonprofits are paid (have to be paid) market rate.
> > Nonprofit status relates to the absence of investor payouts
The people at the helm of the first organization which cracks AI won't have any need for money
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Signal employees make $400k to $600k a year. How much is OpenAI paying?
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824...
Interesting, but deceptive. Those are, as noted, "Key Employees and Officers." I just assume most employees with the title "Software Developer" aren't making over five times what Moxie is making.
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Nov 13 article: "OpenAI recruiters are trying to lure Google AI employees with $10 million pay packets"
https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-recruiters-luring-goo...
also, this shows $900k+ for L5 w/ 3-4 yoe: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/openai/salaries/software-en...
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... looks like this has been the case for a while (since inception)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-int...
Looks like double to triple of what the same level at MSFT fetches https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Microsoft,OpenAI&track=Softw...
Few
700 out of 770 employees already signed an open letter saying they will consider changing jobs.
Remember all those Apple and Amazon employees who signed a letter that they're not going back to the office? Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance
Make no mistake, if Microsoft is matching $10M PPU's with $10M Microsoft RSUs vesting over 4 years, every single employee will join. But I kind of doubt that this is their plan
> Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance
That doesn't tell you whether it was the numerator or the denominator that changed.
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> Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance
Do you have a source for this? At other tech companies I'm aware of, the numbers are still much lower than 100%, even after threats of performance impact.
There was no significant uptake on any letter at Apple.
One reason is that retaliation is very possible. The opacity of the executive team was not a feature of Steve Jobs’s Apple, but the Time Cook-era opaqueness combines poorly withthe silo’d, top down nature of Apple’s management which _was_ inherited from Steve Jobs.
The opaqueness, I think, is a result of Tim Cook integrating the retail and corporate sides of the company; retail salespeople are treated better, but software engineers are treated a little more like retail salespeople.
Since the pandemic, Apple execs have seemed to be isolated in a bubble and are not listening to the rank and file anymore. The people they do listen to seem to be out of touch.
That kind of compensation skew will case ripples in the company. It's possible that OpenAI is worth it, but it is a big gamble by Microsoft.
I think that is approximately L70 comp.
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> Last I heard Apple was at 100% compliance
Bit of a flaw in your logic there ;-)
The CTO of Microsoft tweeted this morning that they would hire any OpenAI employees who wanted to join MS with commensurate pay. For whatever that’s worth.
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Are those PPUs really worth anything?
As others have pointed out, it's easier to sign a letter than actually go through with it. Besides that, wasn't there some employees who said something similar on Friday when this happened?
This is simply a matter of momentum. If enough of the signatories follow through more will cross the bridge until there are too few people left to keep it going and then there will be an avalanche. It all depends on the size of the initial wave and the kind of follow on. If that stops at 200 people leaving it will probably stay like that, if that number is 300 or even 400 out of the 700 then OpenAI will be dead because the remainder will move as well.
I think peer pressure also plays a part. You want to be part of the majority in case things change, Sam comes back etc.
Actually going is a whole different thing. Why not go to Google or FB or Anthropic if you’re quitting anyway, and they can match the offer.
I don't doubt that a lot will, but it's also easy to sign a letter.
[unpopular comment removed]
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How reliable is this information, could it be a deliberate rumor spread by interested parties?
I agree that it is surprising that the first big whiff of collective bargaining that we see in Big Tech is “let’s save this asshole CEO (who would probably try to bust any formal unionization),”[1] rather than trying to safeguard the workers in the industry as a whole. But I just attribute that to Silicon Valley being this weird hero-worship-libertarian-fantasy cosplay rather than outright conspiracy.
[1] Just to clarify, I don't know Sam and I am taking the usual labor viewpoint that most CEOs, in order to become CEOs, had to be a certain sort of asshole who would be likely to do other such asshole things. There are some indications that this sort of assholery is what he was fired for but it's kinda hard to read between the lines here.
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> they will consider changing jobs.
Hmmmm. The stiff resolve of a spaghetti noodle. I "consider" changing jobs literally every single day.
They didn't say they were going to Microsoft, as far as I can tell. I presume many can get golden offers anywhere including academia and other institutions with stronger nonprofit governance track record.
Literally says "join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary"
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/technology/le...
what this have to do with their willingness to join Microsoft?!?
this only signals desire to leave openai. nothing else.
This is a direct quote from the letter:
>We , the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.
It does suggest more than their willingness to leave.
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Very few people in tech are in it for noble reasons. Although, a nice pair of golden handcuffs can let you delude yourself into thinking what you are doing is noble. I can't imagine people working on shadow profiles at Facebook think what they are doing is noble.
Exactly this.
When challenged, they say ‘someone else would’ve done it anyway, so it might as well be me’. Which isn’t incorrect I think.
You join OpenAI because if there is an open spot you’d take it. Plus it’s a famous company doing cutting edge AI, sure you can read the statement, but everyone wants to eat and get a better resume. It’s a bonus thing to feel.
In summary, nobody gaf
I would wager a very small % of them care about the legal structure of the business and just wanted to build really cool stuff with Sam.
If they were in it for purely noble reasons, they would have already left when it became NotOpenAI.
When you're total compensation depends on the for profit part does it really matter?
People talk about the coherence of 700 people signing an open letter as being goal aligned, but I see it more like mortgage payment aligned.
it didn't preclude a now common cult of personality problem.
When reading the title I was instantly reminded of "Come to the dark side, we have cookies!"
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/voik6qeguhwaa0hx4zmxm/come-to...