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Comment by tucif | Hacker News Reader

Bloomberg's Austin Carr says "Any employees who do join Microsoft can’t simply replicate the work they were doing on OpenAI properties like GPT-5 without inviting a nightmare of claims over trade-secret theft."

But doesn't really explain why, I wonder if there's any substance to it in the light of Satya's comments about having the rights to "continue the innovation".

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-11-21/micros...

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IANAL but regardless of whether they’re actually infringing, even the appearance of impropriety would give OpenAI cause to sue the employees directly. Most people simply aren’t equipped financially and emotionally to defend against a well resourced corp so it’d be a bloodbath of epic proportions. Even if Microsoft paid for everyone’s legal fees, if the lawsuits don’t get thrown out quickly the stress alone would grind the entire division to a halt.

If Microsoft does end up poaching the entire team, everyone will be walking on eggshells with legal breathing down their neck.

OpenAI won't sue anybody. They are lucky to exist by Jan. 1st. And if they do it will be with substantially diminished stature unless they can reverse this whole shitshow (unlikely).

Why? The nonprofit will certainly continue existing in name, if nothing else.

Let's see. It all depends on how high the temperature will go up from here. I give it 70/30 in favor of OpenAI still existing Jan. 1st 2024 in an operational aspect, with a lesser chance of them being defunct but still existing as a legal entity.

For every hour that the new CEO doesn't come out to start repairing their reputation that chance goes up.

He doesn't cite any sources either. The contract details remain murky.

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