To answer a few people at once: I did mention compensation as a factor in the post, but I didn't elaborate details, so easy to miss. Comp is important of course, but so are the other factors. It feels like I can't go for a day without reading about the cost of AI datacenters in the news, and I can do something about it.
Thanks for taking the risk in this environment and posting about your experience from a personal standpoint. [environment: people will come at you from all angles with very passionate opinions]
It would be good if the performance improvements made can be applicable across the industry so everyone benefits. But it doesn't sound unbelievable that OpenAi may want to keep some of it secret to keep an advantage over others?
The string "compens" appears exactly once in your post:
> But there are other factors to consider beyond a well-known product: what's my role, who am I doing it with, and what is the COMPENSation?
You did it for the money; don't try to rationalize it, because no one believes you. For that amount of cash, I'd probably jump on Altman's bubble for a year or two.
Interesting. Out of curiosity, how long do you think OpenAI can survive as a company? Put another way, what would be your guesses for probability of failure on 1yr, 3yr, and 5yr horizons?
EDIT: possibly a corollary--does Mia pay money for chatgpt or use a free plan?
> I stood on the street after my haircut and let sink in how big this was, how this technology has become an essential aide for so many, how I could lead performance efforts and help save the planet.
Brendan.
First of all congratulations on your new job. However,
It is easier to just say to everyone it is about the money, compensation and the stock options.
You're not joining a charity, or to save the planet, this company is about to unload on the public markets at an unfathomable $1TN valuation.
> ...it's not just about saving costs – it's about saving the planet
There's something that doesn't sit right with me about this statement, and I'm not sure what it is. Are you sure you didn't just join for the money? (edit: cool problems, too)
Right? Like what an incredibly naive thing to think, that BG is going to contain power consumption lmao. OpenAI is always going to run their hardware hot. If BG frees up compute, a new workload will just fill it.
Sure you might argue "well if they can do more with less they won't need as many data centers." But who is going to believe that a company that can squeeze more money from their investment won't grow?
Tangentially, I am looking forward to learn the new innovations that come from this problem space. [Self-rightous] BG certainly is exceptional at presenting hard topics in an approachable and digestible manner. And now it seems he has an unlimited fund to get creative.
For people who’s main computing devices are phones, this isn’t hard to believe at all.
Interacting outside of the tech bubble is eye opening. Conversely, the hair stylist might have mentioned the brand of a super popular scissor supplier/other equipment you’d have never heard of.
> She was worried about a friend who was travelling in a far-away city, with little timezone overlap when they could chat, but she could talk to ChatGPT anytime about what the city was like and what tourist activities her friend might be doing, which helped her feel connected. She liked the memory feature too, saying it was like talking to a person who was living there.
This seems rather sad. Is this really what AI is for?
And we do not need gigawatts and gigawatts for this use case anyway. A small local model or batched inference of a small model should do just fine.
It’s super dope, and you can have it talk to people for you in the local language when you go there. I’ve busted it out to explain what I’m thinking for me. Watching travel shows on TV or reading travel magazines is sadder.
Brendan can do whatever he wants. Hes that good. If anybody seriously needed to interview him 20+ times to figure it out, then the burden is now on them to not fuck it up.
He's summing interviews across all AI giants. But the ones about to IPO can interview someone almost infinitely many times, because everyone wants on the bandwagon.
If it's in your power, make sure user prompts and llm responses are never read, never analyzed and never used for training - not anonymized, not derived, not at all.
I think OpenAI will IPO at 1T. I don’t want to say bubble but it could be one of these stocks super hyped that never goes anywhere after the IPO(I.e airbnb during Covid)
To answer a few people at once: I did mention compensation as a factor in the post, but I didn't elaborate details, so easy to miss. Comp is important of course, but so are the other factors. It feels like I can't go for a day without reading about the cost of AI datacenters in the news, and I can do something about it.
Thanks for taking the risk in this environment and posting about your experience from a personal standpoint. [environment: people will come at you from all angles with very passionate opinions]
It would be good if the performance improvements made can be applicable across the industry so everyone benefits. But it doesn't sound unbelievable that OpenAi may want to keep some of it secret to keep an advantage over others?
> Comp is important of course,
The string "compens" appears exactly once in your post:
> But there are other factors to consider beyond a well-known product: what's my role, who am I doing it with, and what is the COMPENSation?
You did it for the money; don't try to rationalize it, because no one believes you. For that amount of cash, I'd probably jump on Altman's bubble for a year or two.
Interesting. Out of curiosity, how long do you think OpenAI can survive as a company? Put another way, what would be your guesses for probability of failure on 1yr, 3yr, and 5yr horizons?
EDIT: possibly a corollary--does Mia pay money for chatgpt or use a free plan?
> I stood on the street after my haircut and let sink in how big this was, how this technology has become an essential aide for so many, how I could lead performance efforts and help save the planet.
Brendan.
First of all congratulations on your new job. However,
It is easier to just say to everyone it is about the money, compensation and the stock options.
You're not joining a charity, or to save the planet, this company is about to unload on the public markets at an unfathomable $1TN valuation.
Don't insult your readers.
You gonna open source it?
> ...it's not just about saving costs – it's about saving the planet
There's something that doesn't sit right with me about this statement, and I'm not sure what it is. Are you sure you didn't just join for the money? (edit: cool problems, too)
The AI train is going with or without you, if you can be part of it and improve the situaton, why not.
Right? Like what an incredibly naive thing to think, that BG is going to contain power consumption lmao. OpenAI is always going to run their hardware hot. If BG frees up compute, a new workload will just fill it.
Sure you might argue "well if they can do more with less they won't need as many data centers." But who is going to believe that a company that can squeeze more money from their investment won't grow?
Tangentially, I am looking forward to learn the new innovations that come from this problem space. [Self-rightous] BG certainly is exceptional at presenting hard topics in an approachable and digestible manner. And now it seems he has an unlimited fund to get creative.
They're going to grow either way. Those new workloads are going to be run
Ya, we know. Just humbling the author ;)
I stopped reading just after that. “I joined PhilipsMorris to make smoking cigarette smoking safer…”
The problems are interesting and the pay is exceptional. Just fucking own it.
He interviewed everywhere and took the biggest offer. Good! Don’t piss on my face and tell me it’s raining.
[flagged]
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This article is so full of itself I can hardly stand to read it. I had to just sort of skim it instead. Sorry! This style just doesn't do it for me.
It's a blog post, not an article. A narrative of events, not an interesting write-up on a topic.
> Mia the hairstylist got to work, and casually asked what I do for a living. "I'm an Intel fellow, I work on datacenter performance." Silence.
How could she not know?
For people who’s main computing devices are phones, this isn’t hard to believe at all.
Interacting outside of the tech bubble is eye opening. Conversely, the hair stylist might have mentioned the brand of a super popular scissor supplier/other equipment you’d have never heard of.
You missed the sarcasm.
> She was worried about a friend who was travelling in a far-away city, with little timezone overlap when they could chat, but she could talk to ChatGPT anytime about what the city was like and what tourist activities her friend might be doing, which helped her feel connected. She liked the memory feature too, saying it was like talking to a person who was living there.
This seems rather sad. Is this really what AI is for?
And we do not need gigawatts and gigawatts for this use case anyway. A small local model or batched inference of a small model should do just fine.
I use it as something to talk to about incredibly nerdy and/or obscure things no one else would be willing to talk about.
It’s super dope, and you can have it talk to people for you in the local language when you go there. I’ve busted it out to explain what I’m thinking for me. Watching travel shows on TV or reading travel magazines is sadder.
> save the planet > I'd been missing that human connection
At OpenAI.
Mia was right. Listen to Mia
Brendan can do whatever he wants. Hes that good. If anybody seriously needed to interview him 20+ times to figure it out, then the burden is now on them to not fuck it up.
The article says "I ended up having 26 interviews and meetings (of course I kept a log) with various AI tech giants."
I don't think that indicates that any one company interviewed him 20+ times.
Seriously. I would expect him to be more of an offer-only scenario.
He's summing interviews across all AI giants. But the ones about to IPO can interview someone almost infinitely many times, because everyone wants on the bandwagon.
If it's in your power, make sure user prompts and llm responses are never read, never analyzed and never used for training - not anonymized, not derived, not at all.
No single person other than Sam Altman can stop them from using anonymized interactions for training and metrics. At least in the consumer tiers.
It's a little too late for that, all the models train on prompts and responses.
TLDR: Money, Fame and A Glorious IPO (AGI)
Just say you joined for the money and that Intel's stock didn't do a 10,000x run like Nvidia did and he completely missed it.
So the best chance at something like that again is OpenAI when they achieve a 1TN valuation with AGI.
I think OpenAI will IPO at 1T. I don’t want to say bubble but it could be one of these stocks super hyped that never goes anywhere after the IPO(I.e airbnb during Covid)
Unless OpenAI goes with a very liberal definition of AGI, he's going to wait decades for AGI.
They’re already trying to redefine the AGI playing field by doing so.