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Comment by stingraycharles | Hacker News Reader

Why would MSFT buy the for-profit entity when they already have the employees and IP?

The employees haven't left yet. Business continuity is easier to achieve if the employment arrangements don't have to change.

MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP. They have an exclusive right to some of it, but there's presumably a bunch that's not accessible to them. Again, business continuity is easier if they can just grab all of that and keep everything running as normal.

> MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP

Satya Nadella just did a podcast with Kara Swisher.

In it he specifically said, "we have all of the IP rights to continue the innovation".

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4i4lKsKevNSGEUnuu7Jzn6

The right to continue innovation doesn’t mean they have perpetual rights to the underlying IP. For example, they may be able to use it for a limited period, or for certain purposes.

Not sure if you listened to the podcast.

But Satya made it crystal clear that in the event that OpenAI stopped all development tomorrow, Microsoft would be able to pick up from where they stopped. That requires full access to all of the IP.

Whether it's perpetual is irrelevant because at the point at which Microsoft pulled the trigger it would effectively be like a fork. Any IP from that point is new and owned by Microsoft.

You could say that if you "believed" you could build it from scratch. It doesn't mean they actually own the existing IP although rubes thinking about buying MSFT may think so.

It appears they have an exclusive, irrevocable license to the existing IP. They have the GPT-4 weights, and the legal right to use them however they see fit. That's the deal with the devil OpenAI made.

> It appears they have an exclusive, irrevocable license to the existing IP.

Appears from what? I've seen this stated several times, usually citing nothing and occasionally citing a Nadella statement from which it would be a very tenuous inference.

Non-contradicted statements made multiple times by Microsoft both now and prior to this brouhaha.

> Non-contradicted statements made multiple times by Microsoft both now and prior to this brouhaha.

The statements I've seen don't match what is claimed, which is why I asked for one that did.

It really derives from logic:

a) If it wasn't exclusive then we would have seen some other product besides Bing with this technology by now.

b) Satya has specifically stated that in the event of a breach in contract with OpenAI they have the ability to use the IP to continue development. That clearly indicates it is irrevocable.

Whoa GPT-4 weights! Stop the presses. That is an artifact of the process. They have license to play the game but don't have the IP to make the game.

According to non-contradicted statements from Satya, they have full, exclusive, irrevocable licenses to the IP.

I don't think that contradicts my comment.

That's a whole lot of training and server infrastructure that would have to be rebuilt - and cloning the exact existing stuff would be one heck of a corporate espionage charge, which I expect Microsoft is very avoidant of.

Microsoft has a license to OpenAI's technologies.

And they could clone the entire OpenAI Azure stack in about 10 minutes.

For the brand, the IP, and the fact it would be pennies on the dollar.

I'm just guessing, but they probably have a restricted license to some IP, not ownership of all title and rights to all IP.

Yep, those lawyers can be just as crafty as developers believe it or not.

*edit: just saw it claimed below Nadella said "we have all of the IP rights to continue the innovation"*

I don't know!

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