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.<p>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.
I’m reading the sequel to Robert Grave’s classic, <i>I, Claudius</i>. In it, Cæsar Claudius describes the Imperial Senate’s process of proactive prostration.<p>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.
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?
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.
> investors have raised concerns about Altman not having equity in the high-valued artificial intelligence company that he co-founded<p>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.
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.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/private-foundations-indirect-self-dealing" rel="nofollow">https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/acts-of-self-dealing-by-private-foundation" rel="nofollow">https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation...</a>
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.
He also denied OpenAI will be a for-profit company. Yet, here we are.<p>When billions of dollars are up for grabs, values, ethics, morality, past promises and everything else in between will be thrown out the window.<p>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.
>Regarding his potentially attaining an equity stake, Altman said, “There are no current plans here,” the person said.<p>>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.<p>>“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.<p>So, they're definitely talking about it and it's definitely an option. Yes, <i>technically</i>, 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".<p>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.
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.