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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

Is it actually news that 70% (or whatever) of the employees at a hot startup wouldn't go to work for Microsoft even if they kept their compensation packages (which would probably have a lot of asterisks attached) because of executive suite drama?

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It's "business insider". Don't underestimate how poorly management understands "technical resources". I can certainly see lots of leadership just assuming that pay is the only relevant variable and ignore culture entirely during an acquihire, assuming people are fine doing whatever as long as they're paid.

To be fair, there are a lot of devs for whom compensation is the only thing that really matters -- they are overrepresented here on HN, even. It would be pretty easy to assume that's the majority point of view.

It also may be that's exactly the sort of person that Microsoft prefers, too, but I don't know.

It's an open question whether moving to Microsoft would have been a good deal or a bad deal. But I'm pretty sure that most people seriously contemplating a move were definitely considering the dollars, even if not exclusively. (Although I expect most people signing a petition were not actually serious.)

Microsoft pay isn't the best in the industry so if compensation is the only thing that matters to someone, Microsoft shouldn't even be in their top five.

Even from a compensation point of view, they presumably have a better chance for a big exit of some kind at a startup vs as a Microsoft employee.

A startup that was going to implode? And if you think random “some kind of startup” will have a realistic chance of some type of exit, I got a startup idea where you can be an unpaid employee for “equity”.

In what world in today’s market do you really think open AI would ever see its value at an exit based on their current revenue model?

The choice we're talking about is between:

1. Bail to Microsoft. Your salary is matched but your equity (in whatever OpenAI entity) is forfeit. You have to move to Washington potentially, and definitely have to deal with job switching stress. If you're lucky, you will get the same corporate RSU grant that the Office team got for shipping on time.

2. Stay at OpenAI. You don't have to move or have the stress of starting a new job. Maybe it implodes and you have to take your very-marketable skills elsewhere. Maybe it all works out and your equity is worth millions.

I know which I would pick.

It's not just the compensation however, the article explains that by switching to Microsoft they would have lost their equity packages, which are worth even more than their salary...

Potential equity packages. But hence my comment about asterisks. Maybe moving to Microsoft would be a good financial deal, maybe a bad deal, but certainly a different deal. Especially in the absence of a formal deal.

I dunno, the company had already demonstrated its ability to drastically affect its value to the downside.

Either OpenAI leadership was playing lip service to it's non-profit mission in hopes for riches and fame or they are profoundly naive. Google learned this a long time ago, that they tried not to care about stock price or monetary incentives but always the most pressing thing Googlers cared about was that their stock price went up, when they had $200k - $10m compensation on the line. OpenAI hired people with huge pay packages and surprise surprise when the primary thing on those peoples' minds is making their stock go up, the primary reason OpenAI was founded to prevent.

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