How do you know?
Also maybe I'm just too risk averse but if I were concerned about money I wouldn't be putting my name on such a list. Although at some point past 50% it would feel pretty safe because what are they going to do, fire everyone?
Maybe the simplest explanation isn't the right one for 100% of the people that followed Sam (or were ready to), but it's the right one for 90% of them, which is what matters for practical purposes.
Follow the money.
Clearly they care about working on the most interesting AI around instead of continuing to work under a CEO and board whose whole plan is to cripple AI development. Both the interim CEO Shear and likely coup leader Toner made it clear they are anti-AI and want to slow progress. Toner specifically said she’d be okay with the company collapsing as that was in line with the charter.
Occams Razor is people working on the most interesting stuff in the tech industry want to keep working on it rather than follow some radical EA doomer plan to kill it off well before we get near AGI.
His name is Sam Altman. And why is he so formidable?
Commenting on an article that portrayed him as such?
> His name is Sam Altman.
Unsure what your point is; sama is his hn username.
(It seems obvious that hitching your wagon to Mr. Altman probably has a much better chance of making you rich, than does playing harps on a cloud at an altruistic non-profit. The question is what you actually want.)
In other words, they believed in his leadership, direction, and ability to serve their interests more than they believed in the board's.
I don't understand why so many people are performing mental gymnastics attempting to turn the unanimous support behind him into somehow being evidence that he's the antichrist. Why wouldn't the employees act in their own self-interest? What's wrong with them acting in their own self-interest? I would assume all employees everywhere, more or less, act in their own self-interest and I don't think that makes them or their preferred leadership evil incarnate.
