OpenAI receives funds as a non-profit.
Some of those funds are redirected to for profit ventures.
Critically, the GM (Altman) of the nonprofit owns shares of the for-profit ventures, that OpenAI funds were redirected into.
A regular company could and does invest in any company even when there's a conflict, as long as the conflict is disclosed and the Board votes in favor of it. There's no criminal element there.
The problem is introduced in Altman's case if
(a) there was no disclosure (red flag) and/or
(b) nonprofit that received the funds, is putting money into things not aligned with the 501(c)(3) mission.
I'm not sure if either (a) or (b) are criminal, but they don't pass the smell test, which is why Altman is being sued in civil court, unrelated to the congressional investigation talked about in the article
When data centers and a war of choice pushed inflation to 7+% [1], Republicans in the Congress were left scrambling for a scapegoat. And Sam is a terrific scapegoat. He has no public shareholders like the more hated Zuckerberg and Bezos [2]. Yet he has carved for himself a uniquely-visibly throne for a private-company boss. (His only rival for scapegoatiness is Musk. But he’s inoculated from Republicans by his blatant partisanship.)
[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm 0.6% MoM in April, 0.9% MoM in March
Is Musk probably throwing fuel on the fire? Yes, probably. (Though we have no proof of this.)
Is Musk causing this? No. This is mainly Altman’s doing. The hyperbole. The lying. The leverage. The pomp. Even Zuckerberg and Bezos haven’t painted a target on themselves like he has. (To the point that I’m borderline sympathetic.)
No doubt some of OpenAI's founding principles like "stop + assist if a competitor gets to AGI first" are likely flying out the window, perhaps in part due to him and also as one might anticipate of initial lofty ideals and promises, but even with the recent New Yorker and other articles he seems like someone who maybe regularly placates people to avoid personal problems and lies to get out of trouble rather than a Machiavellian tech baron.
This would be more plausible were it not for the staggering amount of wealth he’s amassed through those lies.
Asking genuinely - why?
Living like that is corrupting. When you treat humans like objects, the question of your starting intentions is really secondary.
The article says the investments were disclosed:
"OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor defended Altman in a court hearing Monday, testifying that Altman had been “forthright” and “proactive and transparent” about his involvements in other companies. Altman recused himself from recent discussions about a deal between OpenAI and Helion as well, The Wall Street Journal reported."
Regarding founder ownership, the rules are extremely flexible like a non profit director can’t own more than 20 voting or 35% total of the business venture
but if it happens then it just needs to be remedied within 3 years
so for venture style deals that’s plenty of time to dilute down, and the little known secret in the startup space is that the founders non profit steps in as the lead investor, so all the other investors arent just twiddling their thumbs waiting for a founder to convince someone, it just closes. Other investors dilute founder and non profit, everything is compliant, value is created. Both for profit and non profit side will be tax free, due to QSBS
It is all about if you can get the money back out.
You can think Altman is a bad person and OpenAI is something of a scam and still recognize that using the government as a tool to corruptly hobble your competition is a horrifyingly bad thing.
These are awful times we live in, I really fear what we'll have to be telling our grandkids. Will it be just a cautionary tale about the dangers of populism and partisanship or will it be sad, wistful tales about how much better things were... "before"?
Sounds a bit like Wework.
Doing business with companies connected to the CEO often creates a conflict of interest. it could all be OK, of course, but OpenAI investing in companies that Altman has already invested in does not look great and needs to be investigated.
But the fact that OpenAI was a nonprofit and then suddenly became a for-profit is definitely something that does not feel right. I am 100% sure that it is all legal and such, but we have this mental model that “nonprofits are the good guys, run by people who just want to help humanity and nothing else.”
But that is not true, and probably never was.
[1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-exec-becomes-top-trump...
Which was motivated by a WSJ investigation into Sam’s personal dealings https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chatgpt-openai-ipo-altman-029ae6...
It’s a popular meme in Silicon Valley. Hence all the stealing.
Text-only, HTTPS optional
No CAPTCHA, no Javascript, no geo-blocking, no DDoS directed at blog
https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA22Xx2j...
Something like
x=https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA22Xx2j/
tnftp -4o"|sed 's/.*\"body\":\"/<meta charset=utf-8>/;s/\",\"readTimeMin.*//'" $x > 1.htm
firefox ./1.htm
links https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA22Xx2j/
Press "d" then "\"
links -dump https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA22Xx2j/ \
|sed '1,/\"body\":\"/d;/\"readTimeMin\":/,$d'Verification Required
The visual verification might not be accessible to you. We recommend you to use the audio verification instead. Important: after clicking play, you will hear 6 digits. Please wait until the audio finishes before typing or interacting with the page. No Internet access Why is this verification required? Something about the behaviour of the browser has caught our attention.
There are various possible explanations for this:
you are browsing and clicking at a speed much faster than expected of a human being
something is preventing Javascript from working on your computer
there is a robot on the same network (IP 96.51.144.101) as you
ID: 85804002-38eb-95f6-1a32-828ec222a8fb
Is this even a thing anymore?
In the words of Hitchens, "Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife."