Microsoft has hired OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman to head up a "new advanced AI research team," the software conglomerate's chief Satya Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and many of their former OpenAI colleagues will join Microsoft, Satya Nadella said.
Altman may not be an AI engineer. But he does appear to be an effective leader of an AI team, and he obviously has the loyalty of an awful lot of his employees. That could be because they are personally loyal to him, or because of their own self-interest with equity, but the situation remains. He put together a solid team once, he can probably do it again. But he also may not have to.
If Microsoft can vacuum up a majority of those 500 employees, if those people join Microsoft because they want to keep working for Altman, then whatever they are paying him is money well spent. And while Altman may not know the nitty gritty, those people do. Collectively they are probably worth more than he is.
Either way, Microsoft has successfully bet on both sides of the coin. Whether they build their own successful AI department, or whether OpenAI continues to succeed, or both, they’re going to come out on top.
The big question mark to me though why exactly the board chose to fire him in the first place. It’s been a good few days, and so far there’s not even a hint. That is strange to me. If whatever he did is awful, the board would want to justify itself. If whatever he did is benign, he would want to redeem his own image. The fact that there’s not even a leak is odd.
He does appear to have their loyalty, if reports are to be believed.
However even every single one of the OpenAI employees on board with him, they’re not taking existing IP with them. And to recreate it from scratch, it seems, would put them so far behind as to not be worth it. Otherwise why freak out about the workplace?
Re Microsoft, they do seem to have the least amount of risk, where at minimum they’ll keep what they have, while the max upside is 100% of everything.
Although even for that, there are some uncertainties that only people with inside knowledge might have. E.g. if MS were instrumental in Altman’s subterfuge that caused his firing, if the board doesn’t want MS involved if they can force them to divest their 49%. Doesn’t seem likely.
Or if the board can create a different for-profit where MS doesn’t have a part and let the other one wither.
Or the risk of massive lawsuits from OpenAI against MS if they wholesale take their employees re IP theft (we’ve seen it between apple, google and Amazon).