Sam Altman tells staff there’s no plan for him to receive ‘giant equity stake’

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/26/openais-sam-altman-tells-employees-he-didnt-get-giant-equity-stake.html

by donsupreme • 2 years ago

49 86 2 years ago

cnbc.com

talldayo• 2 years ago

That's exactly what someone trying to maximize the value of their equity would say.

Lerc5• 2 years ago

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kafkatrap#Noun

A sophistical rhetorical device in which any denial by an accused person serves as evidence of guilt.

mewpmewp22• 2 years ago

This is exactly the type of link someone guilty of aiding and abetting Sam Altman would post.

projectileboy• 2 years ago

He would have to deny it, even if there were none of the shenanigans surrounding all this.

quantified• 2 years ago

There are concepts of a plan, though.

mewpmewp22• 2 years ago

[flagged]

fhdsgbbcaA2• 2 years ago

He does strike me as the kind of guy who would eat Fido in one gulp if he saw any monetary advantage in it.

kumarvvr5• 2 years ago

He also denied OpenAI will be a for-profit company. Yet, here we are.

When billions of dollars are up for grabs, values, ethics, morality, past promises and everything else in between will be thrown out the window.

For society, the framework should always be that a corporation is inherently evil. It is only a matter of time when that evil presents itself.

slimebot803• 2 years ago

Hey, he's in competition with his old mate Elon. Clearly this is what he's referencing.

Tesla has made about 34bn in income over the last 3 years, with stormy waters ahead, yet Elon pocketed himself 56bn under the guise of saving humanity, which is a "vibe" OpenAI also needlessly projects.

nightski• 2 years ago

That doesn't seem right to me, I am seeing $15B net income in 2023 alone. What am I missing.

blackeyeblitzar4• 2 years ago

Pocketed? No he took a zero salary comp package with equity for hitting absurd targets no one thought he could hit. A strong majority of shareholders approved the package then and reapproved it now. He hit the targets so it’s accurate to say he earned it.

Lerc5• 2 years ago

When did he say that?

In 2019 his position seemed to be this. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sam-altman-says-openai-still-...

Altman said OpenAI's long development time-horizon ultimately meant it had no choice but to abandon the nonprofit model if the company intends to survive.
"In spirit, we still view ourselves as working for the world," Altman said. "But I think you have to sort of play the field as it lies. And we just need so much capital to do our work. I think we'll need more capital than any nonprofit has ever raised, probably, and so this was sort of a reflection of reality."

Did he make statements counter to this at a later date?

kumarvvr5• 2 years ago

https://openai.com/our-structure/

The company started as a non-profit. A pretty damning evidence in itself.

This was in December 2015. Did it take this genius 4 years to figure out that to survive as a company, you need to a for profit entity?

Nah.

I think the strategy was to milk the marketing for all its worth, claiming to be "advancing the world, with no penny in pocket" high minded savior company. And then pivot (an innovative move) into raking in the money.

Did all the investors pour in billions without the understanding that this will become a for profit, and a for profit that will 10x their investments?

Jensson• 2 years ago

Have you read their original statements?

We're a non-profit research company. Our full-time staff of 60 researchers and engineers is dedicated to working towards our mission regardless of the opportunities for selfish gain which arise along the way.

"regardless of the opportunities for selfish gain which arise along the way", they failed really hard on that point. That Sam Altman had already changed course by 2019 doesn't mean he didn't lie at the start.

https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Grants/OpenAI/OpenAI_...

bmitc2• 2 years ago

There was PR article after PR article about how he originally had no equity/stock in OpenAI.

Mistletoe• 2 years ago

He's already a billionaire. I don't understand the motivation. I follow a lot of fatFIRE type subreddits and those people are done when they get a few tens of millions and concentrate on quality of life and enjoying their years remaining. It must take an enhanced level of megalomania or God complex to throw away everything (humanity, your reputation) to go for more than 1 billion.

kumarvvr5• 2 years ago

Money is never enough. Not for a homeless person, not for a billionaire.

fblp• 2 years ago

If he does get equity (not options) then he'll have to pay taxes on it at the 409a valuation which is usually lower than market, but would still be crazy high.

paulpauper• 2 years ago

Revisit in a few years. I am sure he will get something.

insane_dreamer2• 2 years ago

Sam didn't put billions in. Others did.

fhdsgbbcaA2• 2 years ago

Hey now, he spent at least 15 hours a week telling various groups of people at OpenAI petty lies in between dinners with Saudi Princes and sundry well-heeled, gullible, low-lifes.

That time is worth money!

zerocrates• 2 years ago

When you're saying the investors are demanding it, the board is saying they've discussed it but don't have specific numbers, saying there are no "current plans" is pretty weak tea as a denial. Okay, there's no plan today but you're... actively working on one?

lolinder2• 2 years ago

The timing of the executive departures is extremely suspicious. There's clearly a major shift happening here in Altman's favor, and even if he's not getting equity now it seems inevitable at this point.

As others have noted, the wording here is also highly suspect: "no current plans" for a "giant equity stake" gives him at least two different paths to claim he never lied about the situation if and when he gets equity.

ookblah• 2 years ago

revisit this in a few years

minwcnt52• 2 years ago

Indeed, I heard there are plans for a giant equity stake to be awarded to a company called Notsam Naltman, LLC, which would leave nothing left to give to Sam Altman.

minwcnt52• 2 years ago

He went on to tell them that he's only expecting a wee little equity stake that's just a single digit percentage.

insane_dreamer2• 2 years ago

How much credibility do you reckon Sam Altman's words have these days?

outside12345• 2 years ago

Basically none. He isn’t known as Scam Altman in the valley for nothing.

senectus12• 2 years ago

I was a bit distracted and read this as Sam Bankman-Fried, the realized it was Sam Altman, then realised there wasn't much light between the two names imho.

deepfriedchokes• 2 years ago

Yeah, but he’s good at it, though. That’s the amazing thing. It’s really obvious to everyone what he’s doing, and yet he still manages to pull it off, repeatedly.

Paul Graham said: “Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.”

Altman is a predator; people respect their power even if they fear their motives. The investor class love guys like him, because he doesn’t let ethics get in the way of seeking power. Same reason they loved Zuckerberg.

skenderbeu• 2 years ago

Who even wants to work with a person nicknamed Scam? Goes to show you the brain consciousness the rest of the employees at OpenAI have.

Apocryphon• 2 years ago

Why would he care about mere money when he gets to be the one to merge with the thing, burning like the brightest star?

grahamj• 2 years ago

"That was child's play for me"

esafak• 2 years ago

The new "Dumb **, they trust me".

phplovesong• 2 years ago

Sam Altman seems like a really shady guy. The tech community wont forget. Im sure there is better alternatives to OpenAI already, and new ones coming in the future.

bmitc2• 2 years ago

The tech community loves shady people and plain doesn't care. Look at where Musk is today. He's been lying and being an idiot for years. It's not like people didn't know about Altman. Yet, he somehow landed these extremely high paying and powerful jobs with literally no resume.

RA_Fisher• 2 years ago

It’s cronyism.

coldn00dl3s• 2 years ago

I am pretty sure this started brewing in the pot when o1 and it's pricing models were conceptualized

Simulacra• 2 years ago

I'm trying not to be pessimistic, but the level of trust and faith that I have in Sam Altman is very low.

joshdavham• 2 years ago

investors have raised concerns about Altman not having equity in the high-valued artificial intelligence company that he co-founded

I think here lies the interesting point. I’m not gonna try to mindread Sam and guess at what his true intentions are, but the investors’ intentions are clear: align Sam’s incentives with profit. I wish him the best of luck in navigating this.

7e• 2 years ago

Sam already has equity in OpenAI though YC.

georgeecollins• 2 years ago

I think he deserves every dollar he can get to protect us from robot overlords!

outside12345• 2 years ago

But wait! OpenAI are the robot overlords!

hn_version_0023• 2 years ago

Liars will lie to advance their position.

dynjo• 2 years ago

A masterclass in the classic rug pull.

replwoacause2• 2 years ago

That most of us saw coming from a mile away

jjulius2• 2 years ago

Regarding his potentially attaining an equity stake, Altman said, “There are no current plans here,” the person said.
OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor told CNBC in a statement that while the board has talked about the matter, no specific figures are on the table.
“The board has had discussions about whether it would be beneficial to the company and our mission to have Sam be compensated with equity, but no specific figures have been discussed nor have any decisions been made,” Taylor said.

So, they're definitely talking about it and it's definitely an option. Yes, technically, there might not be a definitive plan, but the intent and want are both there, and at no point has anybody flatly said, "There will be no equity stake".

Given Sam's history, none of what was said by them today means anything at all, and it cannot be trusted. This is just corporate weasel-wording.

outside12345• 2 years ago

Cool story bro

So what you are saying is that we need to keep guessing at the scam you are running.

Because there is always a scam

JumpCrisscross4• 2 years ago

I’m reading the sequel to Robert Grave’s classic, I, Claudius. In it, Cæsar Claudius describes the Imperial Senate’s process of proactive prostration.

The Emperor never requests favours. Instead, ambitious Senators must guess his desires and offer them to him, at which point a song and dance is done about his refusing and the Senate insisting and him, reluctantly, accepting the honor.

hintymad2• 2 years ago

So did emperors in other countries. They didn’t want to be the new emperors after a successful usurpation. Instead, their followers needed to plead or even force them to accept the throne

JumpCrisscross4• 2 years ago

didn’t want to be the new emperors after a successful usurpation. Instead, their followers needed to plead or even force them to accept the throne

Believable in revolution—for every George Washington and Sulla we have dozens of Pinochets and Putins. After that, however, it’s a stupid lie. The emperor wants things and wants it to look like he was forced to accept it. This is the signature of despots, not even monarchs.

outside12345• 2 years ago

Don’t google that I’m getting a $5B stock grant vibes

outside12345• 2 years ago

I think the only surprise in this is that he isn’t launching a crypto rug pull.

replwoacause2• 2 years ago

But I’ve got good news for anybody in the market for one: Trump just launched his poop log crypto scam.

CatWChainsaw• 2 years ago

He tried already with Worldcoin.

throwup2383• 2 years ago

There's a rather simple reason why this is believable: as a board member of OpenAI Inc (the non profit), he is a disqualified person under self dealing rules [1][2]. If he actually gave himself a multi-billion dollar stake in the for-profit OpenAI Global LLC, it'd be the biggest self-dealing investigation in the history of nonprofits. The IRS and CA FTB would come down hard and OpenAI & Sam would spend a year+ dealing with the fallout.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation...

[2] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation...

JumpCrisscross4• 2 years ago

OpenAI needs money. To do that it must promise to incorporate. It cannot incorporate and then raise funds, because that would take time and give the non-profit blocking leverage. So Altman must raise money while giving a promise, no promise, because the company and non-profit are at arms length.

That said, this is a public announcement. There is motivation more than legal for making this a public concern.

throwup2383• 2 years ago

Can you explain what you mean? I'm not quite sure I follow.

OpenAI needs to raise funds and incorporate.

Which OpenAI are we talking about? Non-profit or its for profit subsidiaries? They're all named OpenAI Inc, OpenAI Global LLC, OpenAI LLC, etc. The for-profit is already incorporated (since 2019 [1]), it just needs to be restructured before anyone is willing to put any more money in at crazy 12 figure valuations.

AFAIK that means removing board control from the nonprofit to prevent another fiasco, converting Microsoft's deal to stock to undo the profit share cap thing, and create an employee stock pool to retain talent.

Because the company and non-profit are at arms length.

I'm not so sure that they are (that said, I don't understand your overall point so this is probably a nitpick). The subsidiary definitely isn't a passive investment as far as UBIT is concerned, and I don't think they can ever be considered arms length if Altman is both CEO of the for-profit and on the board of the non-profit (as far as the corporate veil goes).

There is motivation more than legal for making this a public concern.

It definitely feels like a trial balloon.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#2019:_Transition_from_n...

lolinder2• 2 years ago

Isn't this as simple as him just stepping down from the board? He already gutted it and replaced the members with his own supporters, he doesn't actually need to be on it anymore when it stops being useful.

blackeyeblitzar4• 2 years ago

Whenever I see him speak, he is vague and evasive. He either is untrustworthy or just has no idea what’s going on.

Sam Altman tells staff there’s no plan for him to receive ‘giant equity stake’

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