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Comment by brendangregg

20 days ago

Again, many comments here saying I only care about the money, and while comp is an important factor I think it characterizes me as someone I'm not, and forgets what I've been doing for the past two decades. I've spent thousands of hours of my life writing textbooks for roughly minimum wage, as I want to help others like me (I came from nothing, with no access tech meetups or conferences, and books were the gateway to a better job). I've published technologies as open source that have allowed others to make millions and are the basis for many startups. I'm also helping pioneer remote work and hoping to set a good example for others to follow (as I've published about before). So I think I'm well known for caring about a lot of things during the past couple of decades.

33 comments

brendangregg

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altmanaltman  19 days ago

It's okay to want to make money. You don't really have to justify it this hard unless you want people to really think you don't think comp is important, which is a bit sus to be fair.

  • matwood  19 days ago

    Even if people don't want it to be about the money, it's still about the money because of the world we live in. Good vibes don't pay the mortgage or put food on the table. More money equates to better health and future outcomes for a person and their family, so how couldn't it always be about the money?

    Of course once someone has money they can say it's not about the money, but that privilege is literally bought with...money.

  • brendangregg  19 days ago

    When did I say I don't think comp is important?

    • yosefk  19 days ago

      Thank you very much for your work. I think people envious of someone's compensation don't deserve a response

    • mettamage  19 days ago

      From my reading of what you said, you think comp is important and so are other things. You outlined those a bit too, but I already forgot them.

      Quite frankly, I think some people here are too quickly spooked and think what you say is sus. I simply see that as a sign that they aren't fully having a good faith discussion. Or they simply read things way differently than I do.

      I'm simply writing this because I think there are enough people that have a similar reading to what you wrote. They simply don't mention it as people who feel "outraged" (a bit too dramatic of a term but English is my 2nd language). "Outraged" people seem simply more vocal to me.

      For clarity: I feel neutral about this whole thing. I do appreciate the work you've done in the past.

      1 reply →

    • wakkawukka  19 days ago

      Thermodynamics though.

      Reducing runtime energy use over years won't really make up for the resource use that goes into building the data center. It's just moved around, similar to how Elon moves around money as needed to bolster the financials of a particular project.

      Like with the airline industry it's not just the smog they blow on our food. Drink carts, seat belts, barf bags all have a resource intensive energy and materials pipeline.

      Every server screw and power cable adds up.

pillefitz  19 days ago

The issue is that you're doing lot, but not saving the planet.

What do you think is happening with the efficiency gains? You're making rich people richer and helping AI to become an integral (i.e. positive ROI from business perspective) part of our lives. And that's perfectly fine if it aligns with your philosophy. It's not for quite a few others, and you not owning up to it leads to all kinds of negativity in the comments.

  • trhway  19 days ago

    >What do you think is happening with the efficiency gains?

    may it happen that the efficiency gains decrease demand and thus postpone investment into and development of new and better energy sources? If one couldn't get by just by bringing 20 trucks with gas turbines, may be he would have invested in fusion development :)

    • nextaccountic  19 days ago

      > may it happen that the efficiency gains decrease demand

      What mechanism would make this happen?

      Demand could decrease if AI became worse, but efficiency doesn't make AI worse - it actually makes possible at all to run bigger, better models (see the other comment with a link to Jevon's paradox), which increase, not decrease demand (more powerful models may have new capabilities that people want to use)

      Alternatively, AI demand could decrease through political pressure (either anti-AI sentiment takes a foothold on the public, and/or government regulation strangle demand on the sector like it did for eg. on tobacco industry). But another way to reap the benefits of more efficient AI datacenters is to make it a talking point on how AI environmental impacts can be mitigated, which could curb anti-AI sentiment.

      Either way, those possibilities don't decrease demand for AI - they are either neutral, or increase demand instead.

bigtones  19 days ago

Great to see you're in Sydney Brendan, and let the haters hate.

You have done a brilliant job elevating your chosen specialty to the world, and encouraging and inspiring others in the industry for a long time - so you should be fairly compensated for that lofty position. I don't envy the late nights or very early mornings you have ahead of you on conference calls with SF, but good luck at OpenAI mate !

matthewaveryusa  19 days ago

I think it’s not about compensation or passion, but something a bit more abstract.

I’ll give it a shot; I think you’re successful in what you do and very altruistic and open, not only in your discoveries but also your opinions. You also have a higher sense of duty. as oscar wilde once said, we’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. compensation is boring gutter talk. It’s hard for people to reconcile your benevolence with your success, and just as the trope of joining a company to change the world is a veil for making money, so is the trope of criticizing the agent of change entering an industry because the industry is bad.

Personally I can’t wait to read about the inefficiencies you find and have a little glimpse into openai tech from your opinionated point of view.

solarengineer  19 days ago

Hi Brendan,

I am a long time fan, I have the physical copy of each and every book that you have authored, I have watched each and every video that you are in, and I walk team members and clients through your USE method at every engagement I am on.

I would say to you that the "make the world a better place" has been excessively misquoted. Even the Silicon Valley episode on Tech Crunch parodies show how anything and everything is intended to "make the world a better place".

Please reconsider your use of the phrase given the well-earned negativity around it.

  • brendangregg  19 days ago

    Thanks, I never saw the Tech Crunch parodies before. I also didn't use the words "make/making the world a better place".

    I actually said "it's about saving the planet" based on all the environmentally worried news articles I've seen.

    • solarengineer  19 days ago

      I apologise for the incorrect "make the world a better place" attribution to you.

      It does appear that for many of us "saving the planet" has become akin to "making the world a better place".

      I was excited last night thinking about what you might uncover at OpenAPI. While we can all speculate (device drivers? File systems? Python itself? DB queries? Memory architecture? Inference algos? ) I recall “I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data” by Sherlock Holmes in "A Scandal in Bohemia".

      All the best with your work at OpenAPI. We will all hopefully learn about writing more energy efficient code and about more efficient LLMs and more thanks to your work!

snayan  20 days ago

I mean, I don't know you well, but, I see your posts on here from time to time and from what I gather you are very, very, exceptional at what you do.

Reality is, these AI giants are here and they are using a massive amount of resources. Love them or hate them, that is where we are. Whether or not you accept the job with them, OpenAI is gonna OpenAI.

Given how much the detractors scream about resource uses, you'd think they'd welcome the fact that someone of your calibre is going in and attempting to make a difference.

Which, leads me to believe you're encountering a lot of projecting from people who perhaps can't land the highest of comp roles, and shield their ego by ascribing to the concept of it being selling out, which they would of course never do.

  • gsf_emergency_6  20 days ago

    It's probably impossible to prove I'm not projecting..

    However. I am putting my curious foot forward here:

      What were the toughest ethical quandaries you faced when deciding to join OpenAI?

    To give a purely hypothetical example which is probably not relevant to your case: if I had to choose DeepSeek or OpenAI, I think I would struggle with openness of the weights..

alephnerd  20 days ago

Ignore the haters (who sadly have become extremely common on HN now).

I loved your work back when I was an IC, and I'm sure this is a common sentiment across the industry amongst those of us who started systems adjacent! I still refer to your BPF tools and Systems Performance books despite having not written professional code for years now.

Can't wait to read content similar to what you wrote about when at Netflix and Intel albeit about the newer generation of GPUs and ASICs and the newer generation of performance problems!

gizmodo59  19 days ago

It’s not a crime if you do something for money. Those who comment are likely doing the same and they couldn’t get into a company like OpenAI and hence the hatred! Keep doing the great work you always did! Excited to see what you ll do with all the resources in the world.