[bagxrvxpepzn]

Given that he leaves OpenAI almost immediately after hitting his 25% vesting cliff, it seems like his employment at OpenAI and this blog post (which makes him and OpenAI look good while making the reader feel good) were done cynically. I.e. primarily in his self-interest. What makes it even worse is his stated reason for leaving:

> It's hard to go from being a founder of your own thing to an employee at a 3,000-person organization. Right now I'm craving a fresh start.

This is just wholly irrational for someone whose credentials indicate someone who is capable of applying critical thinking towards accomplishing their goals. People who operate at that level don't often act on impulse or suddenly realize they want to do something different. It seems much more likely he intentionally planned to give himself a year of vacation at OpenAI, which allows him to hedge a bit while taking a breather before jumping back into being a founder.

Is this essentially speculation? Yes. Is it cynical to assume he's acting cynically? Yes. Speculation on his true motives is necessary because otherwise we'll never get confirmation, short of him openly admitting to it (which is still fraught). We have to look at behaviors and actions and assess likelihoods from there.

[tptacek]

There's nothing cynical about leaving a job after cliffing. If a company wants a longer commitment than a year before issuing equity, it can set a longer cliff. We're all adults here.

[bagxrvxpepzn]

> There's nothing cynical about leaving a job after cliffing

My criticism is that that's a detail that is being obscured and instead other explanations for leaving are being presented (cynically IMO).

[tptacek]

I don't see anything interesting about that detail; you keep trying to make something out of it, but there's nothing there to talk about.

There might be some marginal drama to scrape up here if the post was negative about OpenAI (I'd still be complaining about trying to whip up drama where there isn't any), but it's kind of glowing about them.

[bagxrvxpepzn]

Well now the goalpost has shifted from "it's not cynical" to "even if it is cynical it doesn't matter" and dang has already warned me so I'm hesitant to continue this thread. I'll just say that once you recognize that a lot of the fluff in this article is cynically motivated, it reduces your risk of giving the information presented more meaning than is really there.

[tptacek]

Yeah, I just read what Dan said you, and it makes sense, so we should wrap it up right here.

[m00x]

He's likely received hundreds of millions from segment acquisition. Do you think he cares about the OpenAI vesting cliff?

It's more likely that he was there to see how OpenAI was run so he could learn and something similar on his own after.