[dragonwriter]

Microsoft has zero ownership of the entity the board controls (the OpenAI nonprofit), and a for-profit firm having seats on a nonprofit board especially if it was because they invested in a for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit would raise serious issues of the “nonprofit” being run for purposes incompatible with its status.

[015a]

Sure; but its still weird that Microsoft agreed to the deal with the board in the state that it was; not just no board seat, but three absolute outsiders, two of them extremely unqualified. We may look back on their decision to buy 49% of OpenAI as a big misstep.

[solardev]

Wasn't it a Hail Mary for Microsoft? They're not doing anything else particularly earth shattering, and if this came out without them, they'd be even less relevant. If OpenAI fought this and won without them, Microsoft would have nothing to compete against Google and everyone else with.

Did Microsoft have any other route to AI relevance?

[satvikpendem]

Sure, they could simply copy the GPT papers (as they are entirely public) and implement them inside their own products, as they are doing already with GitHub and Office. There is really no need to hang onto OpenAI's word.

[SXX]

Microsoft got access to their IP and capitalized on it.

Likely it's already brought them more than $10B they paid.

[tyre]

And much of that money is/will be spent on Azure. That’s incredibly valuable data and return on investment

[philipov]

How much did they pay for that 49% stake?

[speedylight]

Something like $10 billion.

[campbel]

Already a good investment then, even if this fundamentally changes how impactful OpenAI is going forward.