Microsoft hires OpenAI co-founders Altman and Brockman, 500 employees threaten to quit OpenAI

It was obvious the fallout from Friday's surprise sacking of Sam Altman wasn't remotely done, the big question was where he was going to land. I didn't think he was likely to begin a new startup because the length of time for one to become productive and competitive is too long, and the 'making a new AI chip' also has too long a payoff. Much more likely for him to land with another AI company.

And it turns out said AI company is Microsoft, a heavy investor in his former gig, OpenAI.

Altman will be heading up a "new advanced AI research team". And basically MS extended an open letter for anyone from OpenAI to join Sam in this new division - more on this. It seems to me that this will invite lawsuits from OpenAI about poaching talent, but they're kind doomed to fail. OpenAI has absolutely destroyed their market value with firing Altman, now might be a good time to short their stock as it's going to plumet.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/openai-co-founders-sam-altman-and-greg-brockman-to-join-microsoft/


Over 600 employees signed an open letter to the OpenAI board saying that if the ENTIRE board doesn't resign over the firing of Altman, THEY would resign. With Microsoft having picked up Altman, along with his co-founding buddy and perhaps everyone who resigned from OpenAI along with him, it looks like a pretty easy move for most people.

Over the weekend, "dozens" of OpenAI employees tweeted "OpenAI is nothing without its people". I look at it this way: OpenAI will be able to save a lot of money by right-sizing their office space needs and selling a lot of empty desks!

Now, here's the kicker:
“The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company,” the letter reads. “Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI.”

Remarkably, the letter’s signees include Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a member of its board, who has been blamed for coordinating the boardroom coup against Altman in the first place.

Shortly before the letter was released, Sutskever posted on X: “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.” (emphasis mine)

It would appear that Sutskever seems to be having some second thoughts at seeing the potential looming collapse of OpenAI due to his and the board's actions.

Some more OpenAI follies: the board appointed Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer ... as interim CEO. then after Altman et al was announced as joining Microsoft, "OpenAI’s board chose to remove Murati and appoint another interim CEO, Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch, the video game streaming site."

Let's take a moment to process this. You fire the co-founder of the most recognizable AI company in the world. You replace him with your CTO for the interim CEO. Okay, I can dig that, at least Mira is probably a technologist, kinda goes with the title. And Mira probably hasn't had a chance to move into the new office and is yanked for THE FORMER CEO OF A VIDEO GAME STREAMING SITE?! As they say on Sesame Street (or used to, I haven't seen it in eons), 'One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong'.

I can just picture the board room discussion. 'Yeah, I know this dude who's looking for work right now, he'd be just perfect! He was the boss of this big rockin' company!'

Shear, according to his Wikipedia page, has zero background in data science or AI. He's a financial wonk from Yale.

Let's look at one last thing. Let's suppose those "over 600" OpenAI employees walk over to Microsoft.

OpenAI has 770 employees.

This is going to be a tremendous boon to Microsoft's AI development, they also have ties to chip makers, so Sam can pursue both sides.

https://www.wired.com/story/openai-staff-walk-protest-sam-altman/

Tesla is experiencing a massive worker strike - in Sweden!

Sweden doesn't have uniform labor standard like the USA does, not that our labor standards are truly uniform. There, they are negotiated on union by union basis. But apparently the unions are very good at showing solidarity...

Well, Tesla has pissed off the dock workers, and it's spreading.

From the Wired article's headline, "Starting Friday (last), dockworkers in all Swedish ports will refuse to offload Teslas, cleaning crews will no longer clean showrooms, and mechanics won’t fix charging points as the labor dispute rages on." For five years, the mechanics union has been trying to get Tesla to sign a collective bargaining agreement, and for five years, Tesla has refused. They went on strike in October, and now other unions are joining in.

Snippets from the article:
--Since November 7, union members working at four Swedish ports have been refusing to unload Tesla cargo. Tomorrow, the blockade will be extended to all ports ... “We don’t want to unload any Tesla cars,” says Jimmy Åsberg, who is president of the dockworkers’ branch of Sweden’s transport union ... “We are going to allow every other car [to dock], but the Tesla cars, they will stay on the ship.”

--The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers’ Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, “simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to,” says ombudsman Torbjörn Jonsson, adding that the union has around 50 members who clean Tesla locations. Four showrooms and service centers will be affected—three around Stockholm and one in the city of Umeå. “Their workshops and showrooms will not be cleaned.”

--Three days later, on November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts, and pallets to all of Tesla’s addresses in Sweden. “Tesla is trying to gain competitive advantages by giving the workers worse wages and conditions than they would have with a collective agreement,” said Seko’s union president, Gabriella Lavecchia, in a statement. “It is of course completely unacceptable.”

Swedish media reports that Teslas are being unloaded at Danish ports and being driven across the border. Now, if the cars themselves are being driven across the border, then I would think the cars could not be sold as new. If they're being transported across the border on trucks, that's different. There's no doubt Elon is anti-union, he's been so forever, but the EU as a whole is very much pro-union and he may have to rethink his approach if he wants on-going success there.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sweden-tesla-strike-cleaners

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/11/18/0041200/swedish-workers-are-uniting-against-tesla

That letter that the OpenAI employees are signing in protest of Altman's firing?

Over SEVEN HUNDRED of the 770 employees have signed it!

And that was as of Monday morning!

Saturday morning, the COO sent out a memo saying that Altman was not fired for any sort of malfeasance. Other news reports have said that he was fired for 'not being forthcoming' with the board', and nothing more specific than that. The board doesn't like how you speak? *POOF*! Gone.

Potentially along with greater than 90% of your employees.

Nice.

I foresee Microsoft expanding network capacity so that a number of new hires work from home while new office space is acquired. Fortunately there's a lot available in San Francisco right now. And it's possible that the offices of a theoretically soon-to-be former artificial intelligence startup might becoming available in the not too distant future, also.

I'm sure OpenAI will be fine. After all, ChatGPT can generate code. Let it generate ChatGPT 5. Who needs employees. They'll save a bundle on payroll and buying snacks.