[cypherpunks01]

"The nonprofit, OpenAI Inc., is the sole controlling shareholder of OpenAI LP" from Wikipedia.

Clearly Microsoft has a large stake as well. It sounds like equity was distributed to employees, but according to Fortune some was sold: "OpenAI’s other investors include Hoffman’s charitable foundation and Khosla Ventures. Last year, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, Bedrock Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz reportedly purchased shares from preexisting shareholders in a sale valuing the company at around $20 billion, according to The Information."

https://fortune.com/2023/01/10/microsoft-investment-10-billi...

[JohnFen]

So, the usual suspects, then. The more I learn about OpenAI, the more it looks like just another SV venture, not some special "for the good of humanity" thing.

[takinola]

Is there an example of a solely "for the good of humanity" thing that has come out of SV? Seems like a strange thing to expect from the technology sector. I think tech companies are (very) net positive for society but don't have to be designed as solely for the good of humanity to achieve this goal.

[smcin]

Benetech [https://benetech.org/]

Code for America [https://codeforamerica.org/]

SFTech4Good [https://www.sftech4good.com] - a newsletter and monthly meetup in SF for orgs/people interested in technology and social impact

There are also social-cause startups (which obviously have to be monetized by some funding source, typically govt, grant or ESG).

Also, Yahoo (RIP) was by reputation as community-minded and pro-open-source as a for-profit business citizen can get.

[LordDragonfang]

>Yahoo (RIP) was by reputation as community-minded and pro-open-source as a for-profit business citizen can get.

As someone who went through Yahoo acquisition and total bungling of tumblr, where community feedback fell on deaf ears, that's news to me. (Granted, the next owners were the ones who immediately managed to drop the userbase by like 80%, so maybe you're not totally wrong)

[smcin]

I said was. Meaning pre-2012. What year in your opinion did Yahoo jump the shark, as an employer?

(IIRC Yahoo culture had the reputation for being very friendly to employees open-sourcing their code, and not aggressively pursuing BS patent suits; this was different to most of MAANG + telecomms.)

[JohnFen]

Exactly the point I was making. We may quibble about whether or not SV companies overall have been a net positive, but that's neither here nor there.

OpenAI has been selling themselves as a do-gooder kind of project. I think that they're being disingenuous in doing so. They're building just a regular old SV money-spinner.

[libraryatnight]

Just to piggyback on these guys not being the good guys, I don't think good people would have released this yet. This is gas on a fire when you look at the issues people are having figuring out whats going on in the world and making sense of it.

Every interaction with the public and these AIs I see screams "this was not ready for general consumption"

[solveit]

Wikipedia?

[soiler]

> I think tech companies are (very) net positive for society

There are certainly huge positives, but do you really feel something like Facebook is a net positive? Facebook, which intentionally stoke(d/s) genocide? Genocides have existed before Facebook, yes, but so did communication and racist relatives.

[jon-wood]

Do you have a source on them intentionally stoking genocide? I’m not fan of Facebook, but if there’s reliable evidence on that I’d expect summons to The Hague in short order, which I’ve yet to see.

[eCa]

Some people certainly believe so[1], there are also plenty of other links if searching for ’facebook myanmar genocide’ (though I would assume they a few common sources). But intentions are of course hard to prove.

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

[cbtacy]

Investors include Y Combinator, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Microsoft, Amazon, Infosys, Tiger Global, Elevation Capital, Bedrock Capital, Wikus Ventures, Social Discovery Ventures, Pre IPO Club, Matthew Brown Companies, Change.org, and Fenrir.

[sacnoradhq]

Most are okay, except a few. Taking on investors, with or without equity, is marriage to them nonetheless.

Avoid:

- Thiel and Tiger (Coleman III) - Political meddlers

- Khosla - beach-hoarder and waster of taxpayer dollars

- Social Discovery Group - Russia