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Comment by flappyeagle | Hacker News Reader

> The board announced the removal of a CEO which they have the power to do.

They have the power to remove him momentarily, do they have the power to keep him out? we're still finding out.

> OpenAI’s valuation isn’t because Sam Altman is worth $90B it’s the tech.

OpenAI's valuation is nominally because of the tech. It's fundamentally because of the people. 90% of the staff is threatening to follow Sam to $MS so that's the whole ball game. They went to OpenAI to make themselves rich. The board fired the guy that was trying to do that for them.

> I was sad when my favorite pet died too, but then eventually you get a new pet that’s just as good as a Worldcoin guy, maybe better.

Doesn't matter if you or I am sad. It only matters if the talent at OpenAI is sad. The board made them sad. Sam and Sataya make them happy.

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About the 90%, this is very much a game of musical chairs and game theory in general. If your perception is that there is a high likelihood that Altman might return it's prudent to sign the letter. That's why I think the past few days were about shaping a narrative on Twitter and in the media in general.

If it’s fundamentally about the people, can you name some of these 90% that OpenAI couldn’t live without? Other than Ilya? From where I’m sitting the 90% are replaceable in a flooded market of available software engineers.

If Satya and Sam make them happy then go work for Microsoft. The board is calling their bluff right now.

Do you think they hired those people because they're useless?

> The board is calling their bluff right now

The board is not doing much of anything. They picked a CEO then she went to team sam. Then they picked another CEO and now he's threatening them with resignation. Not to mention the 3 other people they tried to bring into the role who refused.

No I think they hired them because they can do the job the agreed to pay them. I don’t think these people are irreplaceable, that would be silly. That’s what Sam Altman wants you to think.

> I don’t think these people are irreplaceable, that would be silly.

Maybe go and spend some time to bone up on who exactly works for OpenAI, what their track record is (education, publications and so on) and then tell me where you are going to find another 700 people that talented who will want to work for a company this damaged.

That’s only if 700 people are all doing the same job. The entire company is key engineering talent? That seems unlikely.

> From where I’m sitting the 90% are replaceable in a flooded market of available software engineers.

The market is flooded with junior engineers who have recently graduated from coding boot camps, and who might be good at building the specific types of software they have been shown. However, there is, as I understand it, still a dearth of senior engineers who can do the sort of work that OpenAI engineers are doing: building a novel product, with novel, cutting edge algorithms, at massive scale.

If lots of people could easily replicate OpenAI’s product, it seems strange that has nobody released a competitor to gpt4. Why is Microsoft - a company with one of the largest pools of software engineers in the world - clambering to hire all the engineers at OpenAI?

It’s because those people aren’t replaceable. There is probably a global pool of maybe ten thousand people who can do the work that OpenAI is doing. And OpenAI has assembled a high performance team of ~800 of them. Those people are currently worth their weight in gold.

It is not flooded with junior engineers, it's engineers of all skill levels. I happen to know as someone who is senior looking for work right now. Most of the open positions are for senior and staff level positions.

Microsoft isn't clambering to hire them, they're clambering for the IP. The OpenAI employees will get significantly less if they go over to Microsoft.

My guy. It’s flooded with juniors. Juniors at all levels of junior-ness. Including ones called “senior”

I hope you enjoy the difficulty of finding a job in a flooded market one day.

I hope no one does. Whether it's the Open AI situation or the job market, I am describing reality, not wishful thinking.

> Most of the open positions are for senior and staff level positions.

So what you're saying is that companies are struggling to find qualified senior and staff level engineers to fill their open roles? Doesn't sound like a flooded market to me.

I can't name them, no, but they're the people who built the thing that is being valued 90B. If they migrate (leadership included), so does the potential for future value. My feeling is that the 90B are moving. Sure, IP, existing contracts, licensing, you name it, will have residual value - but if I consider its board a clown car I will refrain from building on top of its API because they might not be around by lunchtime tomorrow. Enough people think like this, it starts spiraling down the drain.

Do you know the board is a clown car or is that what the media surrounding “the chaos” has told you. The board has been quiet is all. Does that automatically mean they’re in the back flushing documents down the toilet and juggling balls? Or is there a better reason they feel no reason to publicly respond to a bunch of media flurry?

https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1727206187077370115

Sam and Greg returning. Board folded.

https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1727228431396704557

Their hand picked CEO called them on their BS and they could not produce

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