Stocks Thread (A/K/A STONKS THREAD)

[goofy]

rofl

Ed Zitron (@zitron.bsky.social)

[riverman]

Fuck tech bros. What a bunch of god damn weirdo sociopath asshole fucking douche bags.

[Jman220]

What happened now? I saw the CEO got ousted.

[goofy]

Nothing happened, just this techbro complaining that Biden should step in and force this private company to rehire Altman as CEO or whatever lol

[commonWealth]

@goofy

Sounds like communism!

[Namath]

So puts on all human progress on Monday

[pvn]

Nikita bier is literally the worst sort of tech bro, he hasn’t built anything remotely productive but has somehow managed two big exits, absolute navel gazing exhochamber brain

[pvn]

god my linkedin feed is 100% fucking dipshits crying about sama

shut the fuck up

[goofy]

I haven’t been paying close attention to this but apparently there’s been tons of whiplash

OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

Update November 18th, 5:35PM PT: A source close to Altman says the board had agreed in principle to resign and to allow Altman and Brockman to return, but has since waffled — missing a key 5PM PT deadline by which many OpenAI staffers were set to resign. If Altman decides to leave and start a new company, those staffers would assuredly go with him.

Update November 19th, 11:50AM PT: Last night, after we learned OpenAI was trying to get Altman back and that the board was waffling, chief strategy officer Jason Kwon told employees that the company is “optimistic” about Altman returning and would share more Sunday morning. Meanwhile, a bunch of OpenAI employees took to X to voice their support of Altman with heart emojis.

Update November 19th, 9:21PM PT: After bypassing another 5PM PT deadline, we’ve learned the deal for Sam Altman’s return has fallen apart, and OpenAI now has its third CEO in one weekend, as former Twitch boss Emmett Shear is taking over. You can follow future updates here.

https://twitter.com/ashleevance/status/1726469283734274338

[riverman]

Maybe Microsoft should have you know, negotiated for some power before pumping $15 billion into this shit show?

[bbb7979]

On the one hand it’s great that the nonprofit part of the org holds all the power over the for profit part. On the other hand that still doesn’t solve what the potential of all that money does to individual people whether employees or executives or investors or board members.

This was either some crazy power play by that Ilya guy, or this was the non profit side deciding they were at an inflection point and they needed to take swift action to maintain their control before too much of the company was won over b the allure of getting filthy rich.

[commonWealth]

@riverman

Maybe Microsoft should have you know, negotiated for some power before pumping $15 billion into this shit show?

Hey what’s $15 billy when you’re worth almost $3 trilly?

[bbb7979]

I assume in the same thought process that led Google to made Android free, Microsoft was ok with putting 15 billion into nonprofit OpenAI as long as it’s product could make Bing a real threat to Google’s core search business. It wasn’t really about getting control over the company but about undermining one of their biggest competitors

[d10]

I think they succeeded there and justified their investment already. I haven’t switched to Bing out of inertia but I have a higher opinion of their search than Google’s and I don’t think I’m alone. That wasn’t the case before integrating openAI.

[riverman]

Google search is complete trash. The first several results are ads and the majority of the rest are disguised ads. It’s a hellscape.

[bbb7979]

Just like Amazon shopping experience. Still it’s hard to overestimate incumbent advantage. There’s over a million people still paying subscription to AOL.

[jmakin]

legit unusable and AI generated seo spam somehow made it even worse than it already was

[grue]

Amazon still works to find things with having to append the word reddit to everything

[goofy]

WaPo says hundreds of employees are threatening to quit and join Altman at Microsoft unless the board resigns and he’s reinstated as CEO: OpenAI’s future in chaos as employees threaten to quit, join Altman at Microsoft

Is this what makes Silicon Valley realize that collective action works? Also, it would be incredible if the board leaks the real reason they booted him and it’s real bad.

[goofy]

lol Levine is so good:

I mean here’s a diagram:

And then here’s a slightly annotated diagram:

In the first diagram, the word “controls” appears four times, and if you trace it through, you will see that the board of directors of OpenAI ultimately controls each entity in the organization. All of OpenAI answers to its ultimate decision-making body, an independent nonprofit board of directors who do not own any equity in the OpenAI entities and who, broadly speaking, appoint themselves. They answer to their own consciences, not to any investors. “The Nonprofit’s principal beneficiary is humanity, not OpenAI investors,” explains OpenAI.

In the second diagram, I have written the word “MONEY” in large green letters.

The question is: Is control of OpenAI indicated by the word “controls,” or by the word “MONEY”?

…
It is not difficult to know what role money plays in the current world! The role money plays is: OpenAI (still) needs a lot of it, and investors have it. If you are a promising tech startup (and OpenAI very much is) then you can raise a lot of money from investors (and OpenAI very much has) while giving them little in the way of formal governance rights (and OpenAI very much does). You can even say “write me a $13 billion check, but view it in the spirit of a donation,” and they’ll do it.

You just can’t mean that! There are limits! You can’t just call up Microsoft and be like “hey you know that CEO you like, the one who negotiated your $13 billion investment? We decided he was a little too commercial, a little too focused on making a profitable product for investors. So we fired him. The press release goes out in one minute. Have a nice day.”

I mean, technically, you can do that, and OpenAI’s board did. But then Microsoft, when they recover from their shock, are going to call you back and say things like “if you want to see any more of our money you hire him back by Monday morning.” And you will say “no no no you don’t understand, we’re benefiting humanity here, we control the company, we have no fiduciary duties to you, our decision is what counts.” And Microsoft will tap the diagram — the second diagram — and say, in a big green voice: “MONEY.” And you still need money.