OpenAI Battles Safety Concerns and High-Profile Exits | Pivot

1. KSKara Swisher0:00

   Things are getting messy at OpenAI again. Oh, man, is this the most, like, telenovela of a company? The company had other high profile departure again this week with the resignation of Jan Leike, uh, the head of Superalignment, which is the team focused on s- A- AI safety. That's the words. We're gonna be all super aligned. Uh, Leike explained his departure in a series of social media posts saying in part that OpenAI's safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products, and there's been a bunch of shiny products they showed off last week. Uh, Open- it's not- the things are not unrelated. Um, OpenAI has dissolved that Superalignment team. The company told Bloomberg the group will be integrated across research efforts to help achieve safety goals. Uh, S- Sam Altman put out a, a, a statement and also did OpenAI co-founder Gregg Brockman, uh, sharing their view of the p- the future. They said the company has "raised awareness of the risks and opportunities of AGI so the world can better prepare for it." Whether they're preparing for it or not is a big question. There's been at least 11 high profile exits in the last few months. Um, you know, this is an issue, again, of speed versus safety. They have been rolling out the products 'cause they're deathly terrified of getting rolled over by the big companies. I can feel it. I can feel such a Netscape moment for them. Um, you know, uh, we'll see. Uh, we'll see what'll happen here. But it's definitely a company still shaking off or dealing with these issues that they've had, these two different types of people who are, um, involved in this company, which is some that, uh, think this is a, a risk to humanity, others who are like, "Calm the fuck down. Let's make some stuff and we'll figure it out later." Um, uh, one of the things that got a lot of reporting was OpenAI's off-boarding agreements that have non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions. Not uncommon, but theirs were particularly stringent. If a departing employee violated these provisions, they were in danger of losing all their vested equity according to Vox. Sam Altman confirmed in a tweet there was a provision about potential equity cancellation for departing employees, but it was never enforced. The company is currently changing that language. Uh, it sounds like they're just, like, just tough customers on that thing. Um, it is further than other people do. It's usually more talent-friendly in general in Silicon Valley. Scott, what are your thoughts on all this?

2. SGScott Galloway2:13

   When Ilya was part of the board that-

3. KSKara Swisher2:15

   Sutskever.

4. SGScott Galloway2:16

   Yeah.

5. KSKara Swisher2:16

   Yeah.

6. SGScott Galloway2:16

   When, when he was part of the board that fired Sam Altman, (laughs) if you're gonna-

7. KSKara Swisher2:20

   Mm-hmm.

8. SGScott Galloway2:20

   ... stab their prince, you, you better kill him. When he came back-

9. KSKara Swisher2:22

   Yeah.

10. SGScott Galloway2:22

    ... Ilya became the information age equivalent of Prigozhin. He was dead man walking. He just wasn't-

11. KSKara Swisher2:27

    Yeah.

12. SGScott Galloway2:27

    ... going to survive. "Oh, no hard feelings for firing me." (laughs) Come on.

13. KSKara Swisher2:32

    Yeah.

14. SGScott Galloway2:32

    L- water under the bridge. That just wasn't gonna happen, and this is similar-

15. KSKara Swisher2:36

    Yeah.

16. SGScott Galloway2:36

    ... to Meta. The fastest way to get a severance check is to go to work for the trust and safety team 'cause every-

17. KSKara Swisher2:41

    Mm-hmm.

18. SGScott Galloway2:41

    ... once in a while, in response to real heat, they'll pretend to give a good goddamn and they'll create a trust and safety team. I doubt-

19. KSKara Swisher2:47

    Mm-hmm.

20. SGScott Galloway2:47

    ... Mark listens to them or cares about them, and then under the cover of dark, fires most of them. I like the fact that OpenAI is becoming more like what they really are, and that is they are a for-profit company, and they're not pretending-

21. KSKara Swisher2:57

    Tough, tough mothers.

22. SGScott Galloway2:58

    And they're not pretending to be anything. I'd rather them be like New Yorkers. That's what- that's one of the reasons I love New York versus doing-

23. KSKara Swisher3:04

    Mm-hmm.

24. SGScott Galloway3:04

    ... business in California, is they-

25. KSKara Swisher3:06

    Mm-hmm.

26. SGScott Galloway3:06

    ... don't pretend to be something they aren't. And-

27. KSKara Swisher3:11

    Mm-hmm.

28. SGScott Galloway3:11

    ... i- i- this is a f- for-profit companies and OpenAI are gonna be so good at making profit, they shouldn't be trusted to do anything else. And the fact- and first off, and also-

29. KSKara Swisher3:21

    Well, except they were founded with a slightly different idea, but go ahead. You can't-

30. SGScott Galloway3:24

    Yeah, and then when they took $11 billion, those people wanted their money-

Episode duration: 8:31