from Hacker News

Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

by spenvo on 7/1/25, 6:08 PM with 699 comments

by softwaredoug on 7/2/25, 1:36 PM
Mercenaries over missionaries.
Many employers want employees to act like cult members. But then when going gets tough, those are often the first laid off, and the least prepared for it.
Employers, you can't have it both ways. As an employee don't get fooled.
by jrm4 on 7/1/25, 8:10 PM
Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact that Meta is, for now, one of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.
by neilv on 7/1/25, 7:19 PM
Can someone make an honest argument for how OpenAI staff are missionaries, after the coup?
I'd be very happy to be convinced that supporting the coup was the right move for true-believer missionaries.
(Edit: It's an honest and obvious question, and I think that the joke responses risk burying or discouraging honest answers.)
by throwaway31131 on 7/2/25, 3:01 PM
What goes around comes around...
From March of this year,
"As we know, big tech companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon have been engaged in a fierce battle for the best tech talent, but OpenAI is now the one to watch. They have been on a poaching spree, attracting top talent from Google and other industry leaders to build their incredible team of employees and leaders."
https://www.leadgenius.com/resources/how-openai-poached-top-...
by jacquesm on 7/2/25, 3:37 AM
Sam vs Zuck... tough choice. I'm rooting for neither. Sam is cleverly using words here to make it seem like OpenAI are 'the good guys' but the truth is that they're just as nasty and power/money hungry as the rest.
by paxys on 7/1/25, 9:47 PM
Pretty telling that OpenAI only now feels like it has to reevaluate compensation for researchers while just weeks ago it spent $6.5 billion to hire Jony Ive. Maybe he can build your superintelligence for you.
by bluecalm on 7/1/25, 7:28 PM
Do I "poach" a stock when I offer more money for it than the last transaction value? "Poaching" employees is just price discovery by market forces. Sounds healthy to me. Meta is being the good guys for once.
by thih9 on 7/2/25, 8:52 AM
What I hear is: “The person that profits from employees who don’t prioritize money encourages employees to not prioritize money.”
Unsurprising, unhelpful for anyone other than sama, unhealthy for many.
by davidcbc on 7/1/25, 7:19 PM
Does he have the same conviction when people from other companies decide to join OpenAI?
by ipsum2 on 7/1/25, 6:59 PM
The game theoretic aspect of this is quite interesting. If Meta will make OpenAI's model improvements open source, then the value of every poached employee will be worth significantly less as time goes on. That means it's in the employees best interest to leave first, if their goal is to maximize their income.
by techterrier on 7/2/25, 2:25 PM
People taking my money in exchange for doing a thing - Missionaries People taking someone else's money in exchange for doing a thing - Mercenaries
got it
by lanthissa on 7/2/25, 8:35 AM
there has yet to be a value openAI originally claimed to have that has lasted a second longer than there was profit motive to break it.
they went from open to closed. they went from advocating ubi to for profit. they went from pacific to selling defense tech. they went from a council overseeing the project to a single man in control.
and thats fine, go make all the money you can, but don't try do this sick act where you try to convince people to thank you for acting in your own self interest.
by andsoitis on 7/1/25, 8:11 PM
> OpenAI is the only answer for those looking to build artificial general intelligence
Let’s assume for a moment that OpenAI is the only company that can build AGI (specious claim), then the question I would have for Sam Altman: what is OpenAI’s plan once that milestone is reached, given his other argument:
> And maybe more importantly than that, we actually care about building AGI in a good way,” he added. “Other companies care more about this as an instrumental goal to some other mission. But this is our top thing, and always will be.
If building AGI is OpenAI’s only goal (unlike other companies), will OpenAI cease to exist once mission is accomplished or will a new mission be devised?
by toofy on 7/1/25, 8:02 PM
hilarious seeing that he views it this way when his company is so very well known for taking (strong arguments say stealing) everything from everyone.
i’m noticing more and more lately that our new monarchs really do have broken thought patterns. they see their own abuse towards others as perfectly ok but hilariously demand people treat them fairly.
small children learn things that these guys struggle to understand.
by alganet on 7/1/25, 10:30 PM
Why does this feel like the "Friendship Ended With Musadir" meme?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/friendship-ended-with-mudasir
by keeeba on 7/2/25, 10:13 AM
Just checking my notes here.
This is the same Sam Altman who abandoned OpenAI’s founding mission in favour of profit?
No it can’t be
by spenvo on 7/1/25, 7:10 PM
OpenAI's tight spot:
1) They are far from profitability. 2) Meta is aggressively making their top talent more expensive, and outright draining it. 3) Deepseek/Baidu/etc are dramatically undercutting them. 4) Anthropic and (to a lesser extent?) Google appear to be beating them (or, charitably, matching them) on AI's best use case so far: coding. 5) Altman is becoming less like-able with every unnecessary episode of drama; and OpenAI has most of the stink from the initial (valid) grievance of "AI-companies are stealing from artists". The endless hype and FUD cycles, going back to 2022, have worn industry people out, as well as the flip flop on "please regulate us". 6) Its original, core strategic alliance with Microsoft is extremely strained. 7) and, related to #6, its corporate structure is extremely unorthodox and likely needs to change in order to attract more investment, which it must (to train new frontier models). Microsoft would need to sign off on the new structure. 8) Musk is sniping at its heels, especially through legal actions.
Barring a major breakthrough with GPT-5, which I don't see happening, how do they prevail through all of this and become a sustainable frontier AI lab and company? Maybe the answer is they drop the frontier model aspect of their business? If we are really far from AGI and are instead in a plateau of diminishing returns that may not be a huge deal, because having a 5% better model likely doesn't matter that much to their primary bright spot:
Brand loyalty from the average person to ChatGPT is the best bright spot, and OpenAI successfully eating Google's search market. Their numbers there have been truly massive from the beginning, and are I think the most defensible. Google AI Overviews continue to be completely awful in comparison.
by WaltPurvis on 7/2/25, 4:06 PM
I'm pretty sure Sam Altman's only mission in life is to be as personally wealthy as Mark Zuckerberg. Is that mission really supposed to inspire undying loyalty and insane workloads from OpenAI staffers?
by nwmcsween on 7/2/25, 7:08 AM
Sam Altman complaining about "unethical" corporate behavior is pure gold
by qwertox on 7/2/25, 11:44 AM
Sam Altman is not a bit different than Mark Zuckerberg. His mission is to make money and get as much information to process about individuals, to be used for his benefit, all the rest is just blah blah.
by angst on 7/2/25, 5:46 AM
“I don’t think Sam is the guy who should have the finger on the button for AGI.”
- Ilya Sutskever, Co-founder, co-lead of Superalignment Team , Departed early 2024
- May 15, 2025, The Atlantic
Anyway, I concur it's a hard choice as one other comment mentions.
by elif on 7/2/25, 1:00 PM
I've seen paying people too much completely erode the core of teams. It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks when you have generational FU$ and a family you love.
by jlebar on 7/1/25, 9:06 PM
I think that leaks like this have negative information value to the public.
I work at OAI, but I'm speaking for myself here. Sam talks to the company, sometimes via slack, more often in company-wide meetings, all the time. Way more than any other CEO I have worked for. This leaked message is one part of a long, continuing conversation within the company.
The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get leaked. So you're eavesdropping on a tiny portion of a conversation. It's impossible not to take it out of context.
What's worse, you think you learned something from reading this article, even though you probably didn't, making you more confident in your conclusions when you should be less confident.
I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to see how confidently wrong most poasters are. It certainly has humbled my own reactions to news. (In this particular instance I don't think there's so much right and wrong but more that I think if you had actually been in the room for more of the conversation you'd probably feel different.)
Btw Sam has tweeted about an open source model. Stay tuned... https://x.com/sama/status/1932573231199707168

by apwell23 on 7/1/25, 8:16 PM

  Another said: “Yes we’re quirky and weird, but that’s what makes this place a magical cradle of innovation,” wrote one. “OpenAI is weird in the most magical way. We contain multitudes.”

i thought i was reading /r/linkedinlunatics

by Festro on 7/2/25, 9:34 AM
What an odd turn of phrase. Historically speaking, mercenaries have absolutely slaughtered missionaries in every confrontation.
If missionaries could be mercenaries, they would.
by codingwagie on 7/1/25, 7:05 PM
The value of these researchers to meta is surely more than a few billion. Love seeing free markets benefit the world
by zmmmmm on 7/2/25, 5:34 AM
It says something that he still believes he has "missionaries" after betraying all the core principles that OpenAI was founded on. What exactly is their mission now other than generating big $?
by amarcheschi on 7/1/25, 8:41 PM
Had he been doing the poaching, he would be saying mercenaries will beat missionaries. Why believe in ceos words at this point
by gilfoyle on 7/2/25, 7:40 AM
Sam Altman went from "I'm doing this because I love it" to proposing to receive 7% equity in the for-profit entity in a matter of months. Now he calls out researchers leaving for greener pastures as mercenaries while the echo of "OpenAI is nothing without its people" hasn't faded.
by Animats on 7/1/25, 7:56 PM
Yeah, yeah, typical rich guy whining when labor makes some gains.
by morepork on 7/2/25, 4:31 AM
This looks similar to what Meta (then Facebook) did a decade ago and basically broke the agreements between Apple, Google, etc. to not poach each others employees
by noisy_boy on 7/2/25, 11:07 AM
That means he is moaning because Meta is able to inflict sufficient pain for him to feel it. Seems Meta is pretty serious about it.
Job market forces working as they should.
by Joel_Mckay on 7/2/25, 9:13 AM
Startups with unstable revenue models often don't stand a chance against FANG company budgets. Also, high-level talent is rarely fungible with standard institutional training programs, and have options that are more rewarding than a CEOs problems.
Unfortunately, productive research doesn't necessarily improve with increased cash-burn rates. As many international post docs simply refuse to travel into the US these days for "reasons". =3
"The CEO and the Three Envelopes" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725206 )
by 9283409232 on 7/1/25, 7:13 PM
Is he comparing working at OpenAI to religion? Is that not a crazy analogy to make? Cult like behavior to say the least. It's also funny the entire business of AI is poaching content from people.
by joshdavham on 7/1/25, 7:35 PM
I think Meta already has very deep cultural problems.
If you've ever browsed teamblind.com (which I strongly recommend against as I hate that site), you'll see what the people who work at Meta are like.
by _stillmind on 7/1/25, 6:37 PM
https://archive.ph/9i9vo
by gist on 7/1/25, 9:18 PM
In any case this is business and in many cases how business operates. Nice try on Sam's part to try and make it like it's a bad thing and everybody is for the good of the purpose.
by ndgold on 7/2/25, 5:01 PM
Actually, I think that people who do it for the love of the game are the true winners here, whether they work for a company or not. You can't beat intrinsic motivation.
by qnleigh on 7/2/25, 6:57 AM
An observation: most articles with titles of the form "A SLAMS B" put forward a narrow, one-sided view of the issue they report on. Oftentimes they're shallow attempts to stir outrage for clicks. This one is just giving a CEO a platform to promote how awesome he thinks his company is.
All these articles and videos of people "slamming" each other; it doesn't move the needle, and it's not really news.
by ilioscio on 7/1/25, 6:36 PM
At least from the outside, OpenAI's messaging about this seems obnoxiously deluded, maybe some of those employees left because it starts feels like a cult built on foundations of self importance? Or maybe they really do know some things we don't know, but it seems like a lot of people are eager to keep giving them that excuse.
But then again, maybe they have such a menagerie of individuals with their heads in the clouds that they've created something of an echo chamber about the 'pure vision' that only they can manifest.
by philosophty on 7/1/25, 7:18 PM
Two rich kids who have mostly paid-to-win their way into the game are predictably fighting using money because that's all they bring to the table.
by cjoelrun on 7/1/25, 8:02 PM
Isn't Meta's open model closer to OpenAI's mission then OpenAI.
by cue_the_strings on 7/2/25, 12:16 PM
When you hear him saying it, it's funny.
When you hear this reiterated by employees, who actually believe it, then it's sad. Obviously not in this situation, but I've actually heard this from people. Some of them were even pros. "There is no fool like an educated fool."
by tuannx on 7/6/25, 7:06 AM
Meta AI Talent Jiahui Yu: $100M signing bonus, $10M+/year. Alexandr Wang: $100M+ bonus, salary undisclosed. Senior AI Talent: $18M–$100M bonus, $2M–$10M/year. Strategy: Huge bonuses to poach from OpenAI, Google.
Real Madrid Transfers Cristiano Ronaldo: $80M transfer (2009), $15M/year. Gareth Bale: $120M transfer (2013), $17M/year. Kylian Mbappé: $115M bonus (2024), $36M/year. Strategy: Big fees and wages for “Galacticos” to dominate.
by Yeul on 7/1/25, 7:14 PM
AI as a religion should scare any investor. Where are the products that you can sell for moolah?
by seatac76 on 7/1/25, 8:06 PM
“First comes the Missionary, then comes the Mercenary, then comes the Army”
Wonder if that applies here.
by bilsbie on 7/2/25, 12:33 PM
Dumb question. If they’re willing to pay so much for AI talent. Why won’t companies hire experienced software engineers willing to learn AI on the job? Seems like there should be a big market for that.
by zurfer on 7/2/25, 9:58 AM
Everybody talks about what this does to OpenAI, but I do wonder how this shakes out for Meta.
If the person next to you gets paid 20x more than you, you might be a bit unhappy when they are not 20x more helpful.
by octocop on 7/2/25, 1:30 PM
I don't think it's strange because it feels like Meta is trying to do what OpenAI originally set out to do with making AI accessible to everyone.
by beoberha on 7/1/25, 9:13 PM
I understand the massive anti-OpenAI sentiment here, but OpenAI makes a really great product. ChatGPT and its ecosystem are widely used by millions every day to make them more productive. Losing these employees doesn’t bode well for users.
Meta doesn’t really have a product unless you count the awful “Meta AI” that is baked into their apps. Unless these acquisitions manifest in frontier models getting open sourced, it feels like a gigantic brain drain.
by throwawayq3423 on 7/1/25, 7:23 PM
I'm sorry how is the mission of OpenAI any different than their competitors? They are for-profit they offer absurd salaries, etc.
by FrustratedMonky on 7/2/25, 5:28 PM
By 2025, haven't all employees learned to see through this? Just like the "we're all family" tropes. It's all just attempts at brains washing employees into working longer hours, because of the 'purpose'. But they wont benefit, they can be let go anytime.
by scotty79 on 7/2/25, 1:58 AM
Poaching. Such a nasty word for merely offering and employee a better deal. A place where his work is not underpaid.
by eleveriven on 7/2/25, 7:34 AM
If Meta is offering better comp and a clean slate with strong leadership, some people are going to take that bet
by iamleppert on 7/2/25, 2:27 PM
Sam needs to pony up and reach into that purse of his if he wants to keep his few remaining staff.
by mempko on 7/1/25, 8:00 PM
Missionaries vs mercenaries? Which company is releasing open source models? Please remind me I forgot.
by forgetcolor on 7/2/25, 11:06 AM
Amazing the distinction Sam sees between himself and Zuck while most see no distinction at all.
by jasonm23 on 7/3/25, 6:14 AM
Sam Altman... missionary... I see, that's how the most manipulative person in AI ... oh damn.
- - -
We're faced with a future defining moment, in the hands of emotional infants.... "God" or "the collective actions of humanity" ... save us.
by jackallis on 7/1/25, 8:03 PM
I don't know which pedastal Sam is standing on to point finger at others? Who are the missionaries and who are the mercenaries? What part of OpenAI is Open?
by noufalibrahim on 7/2/25, 7:27 AM
One variable that I think it missing here is that Meta is profitable whereas OpenAI is not.
by Taek on 7/2/25, 5:59 AM
It's weird to hear Sam Altman call the employees of OpenAI 'missionaries' based on their intense policies that seem determined to control how people think and act.
Imagine if in 2001 Google had said "I'm sorry, I can't let you search that" if you were looking up information on medical symptoms, or doing searches related to drugs, or searching for porn, or searching for Disney themed artwork.
It's hard for me to see anyone with such a strong totalitarian control over how their technology can be used as a good guy.
by seydor on 7/1/25, 8:17 PM
This is a bad year to talk about missions and ideologies. Just take the money and run
by logsr on 7/1/25, 10:24 PM
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WrTKZKG7Ahc -- I would probably take Ari Emanuel's word on this one
by zbyforgotp on 7/2/25, 6:32 AM
Zuck poaches AI devs and places them under Wang - how does that work? Wang doesn’t make impression of being a brilliant researcher or coder just a great deal maker (to put it diplomatically).
by p1dda on 7/2/25, 10:30 AM
'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
And hypocrites will never stop whining
by agnosticmantis on 7/2/25, 12:58 AM
What’s the profile of these talents like? And what are the skills that are most highly sought after?
Is it the researchers or the system engineers that scale the prototypes? Or other skills/expertise?
by tom_m on 7/2/25, 1:35 PM
What drama. Hype it up. Make the bubble bigger.
If Sam Altman is upset, he should look in the mirror for making his people work so many hours. They didn't leave because of the pay.
by d4rkn0d3z on 7/2/25, 11:16 AM
There is a fairly strong scientific/historical argument that suggests neither mercenaries nor missionaries have had made any significant contribution to the outcome of any important human conflict or endeavour. Rather microscopic life is in control, and we are keen to rationalize the outcomes into stories of human heroes and villians.
Therefore, wish for the army with the best immune system.
In other words, we should probably be asking what viral/bacterial content is transferred in these employee trades and who mates with who. This information is probaly as important to the outcome as the notions of "AGI" swirling around.
by blotfaba on 7/2/25, 7:17 PM
In a for-profit system, literally everybody is a mercenary. Thoughts, prayers, and vibes don't put food on my table or pay my bills and compute expenses.
by jrflowers on 7/1/25, 8:56 PM
Hmm on the one hand somebody could have unimaginable wealth but on the other hand they could be in a religion started by a former reddit ceo, it is truly an unsolvable riddle
by dinkdonkbell on 7/1/25, 7:12 PM
Didn't many of the missionaries at OpenAI go to Thinking Machines Lab?
https://thinkingmachines.ai/
by zombiwoof on 7/2/25, 6:25 AM
When even Scam Altman disliked Zuck we have reached AI bottom
by jstop107 on 7/2/25, 2:04 PM
This was an important argument in the book The Network State. Corporate politics is the small game right now. Sam is trying to build a Global network state
by alex_young on 7/2/25, 7:20 AM
It’s kind of rich that he’s complaining about Facebook paying engineers ’too much’, given the history here.
A decade ago Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, and Adobe all had anti poaching agreements, and Facebook wouldn’t play ball, paid people more, won market share, and caused the salary boom in Silicon Valley.
Now Facebook is paying people too much and we should all feel bad about it?
by lordfrito on 7/1/25, 10:21 PM
Sam Altman complaining about mercenary behavior from competitors... Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Guess he's unhappy he's not the one being mercenary in this situation.
by bux93 on 7/2/25, 9:33 AM
Wage cuts will continue until morale improves
by tmaly on 7/1/25, 7:43 PM
this open competition for talent is better than that time all the big tech firms were working to actively suppress wages.
by g42gregory on 7/2/25, 5:41 AM
He says, while driving $4 million car. :-)
by gmerc on 7/3/25, 4:02 PM
He's just talking to his cult.
by hearsathought on 7/2/25, 2:50 PM
Mercenaries are just missionaries with better funding. Altman needs more capital to compete.
by mikkom on 7/2/25, 1:09 PM
Says a guy who is poaching openAI
by kylecordes on 7/2/25, 2:53 PM
That's the kind of thing you say when you don't want to pay the market price.
by fudgy73 on 7/2/25, 5:46 PM
I don't think I've ever seen someone use two semicolons in one sentence.
by charlescearl on 7/2/25, 11:11 AM
“I am proud of how mission-oriented our industry is as a whole; of course there will always be some mercenaries.”
In the context of the decisions of largely East Asia born technical staff, can’t help but reflect on the role of actual western missionaries and mercenaries in East Asia over the last 100+ years & also the DeepSeek targeted sinophobia.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Boxer-Rebellion
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_missions_in_China
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Beleaguer
https://monthlyreview.org/2025/02/01/imperialism-and-white-s...
by blackhaj7 on 7/1/25, 7:59 PM
Couldn't think of a worse steward of AI than Meta/Zuck (not a fan of OpenAI either). One of the most insidious companies out there.
Sad to see Nat Friedman go there. He struck me as "one of the good ones" who was keen to use tech for positive change. I don't think that is achievable at Meta
by komali2 on 7/2/25, 9:03 AM
If you're getting poached, pay more. If you can't pay more, give away your equity instead. Nobody owes you their labor, especially if you're already a billionaire.
by karel-3d on 7/2/25, 7:19 AM
Why is it still called Meta? Do they still do the Metaverse thing?
by lawlessone on 7/2/25, 5:09 PM
Why doesn't Sam try hire more juniors and train them up?
by ChuckMcM on 7/2/25, 7:06 AM
I don't know, maybe all the big AI companies could come to an agreement not to poach each others employees?[1]
It is always surprising to me when billionaire CEOs are complaining that their own employees are min-maxing their earning potential.
[1] https://www.ere.net/articles/tech-firms-settle-case-admit-se...
by yeyeyeyeyeyeyee on 7/2/25, 12:34 PM
I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.
by lizknope on 7/1/25, 10:01 PM
> hinting that the company is evaluating compensation for the entire research organization.
TL ; DR
Some other company paid more and got engineers to join them because the engineers care more about themselves and their families than some annoying guy's vision.
by rayiner on 7/2/25, 11:23 AM
Danger Will Robinson. Antitrust law exists again.
by sashank_1509 on 7/1/25, 10:06 PM
Do we know what numbers we are talking about here. I’ve heard
1. “So much money your grandchildren don’t need to work”
2. 100M
3. Not 100M
So what is it? I’m just curious, I find 100M hard to believe but Zuck is capable of spending a lot.
by zeofig on 7/1/25, 11:15 PM
That's rich. Almost as rich as Sam.
by defraudbah on 7/2/25, 11:45 AM
Millionaires will beat missionaries, that's how zuck sees it and I cannot say he's wrong
by philip1209 on 7/2/25, 6:02 AM
The modern iPhone vs. Android battle
by mlinhares on 7/1/25, 7:02 PM
That didn't work for the American colonies, Portugal and Spain were very focused on being missionaries and were beaten by the Dutch and Brits that just wanted to make money.
by megaloblasto on 7/2/25, 12:38 PM
I can't stand missionaries.
by lenerdenator on 7/1/25, 7:02 PM
For a group of people who talk incessantly about the value of unrestricted markets, tech bros sure hate having to participate in free labor markets.
Being a missionary for big ideas doesn't mean dick to a creditor.
by basfo on 7/2/25, 11:27 AM
It always makes me laugh this millionaire rhetoric about “THE MISSION.” I once had a CEO who suddenly wanted us to be on call 24/7, every other week. His argument? Commitment. The importance of "the mission". Becoming a market leader, and so on.
As AlbertaTech says, “we make sparkling water.” I mean, what’s the mission? A can of sparkling water on every table? Spreading the joy of carbonated water to the world? No. You sell sparkling water because you want to make a profit. That kind of speech is just a way to hide the fact that you're trying to cut three full-time positions and make your employees work off-hours to increase margins. Or, like in this case, pay them less than the competition with the same objective.
Sam Altman might actually have a mission, turning us all into robot slaves, but that’s a whole different conversation.
by yard2010 on 7/2/25, 10:07 AM
Pay up mofo, or shut up.
by freejazz on 7/1/25, 6:59 PM
Like the culture of OpenAI where Microsoft threatened to poach the entire staff so they caved?
by nspattak on 7/2/25, 8:33 AM
so let me get this straight, do they like free markets or not ?
by jrvarela56 on 7/2/25, 8:55 AM
Says the mercenary...
by akkad33 on 7/2/25, 1:21 PM
Why the bible lingo?
by yieldcrv on 7/2/25, 10:31 AM
If you aren’t accepting the highest bid then you are contributing to your gender’s wage gap in the wrong direction.
And before you make your rebuttal, if you wouldn’t accept $30,000 equivalent for your same tech job in Poland or whatever developed nation pays that low, then you have no rebuttal at all.
by yaro330 on 7/2/25, 8:30 AM
Poor Sama, let us play a sad song on the smallest violin.
by isx726552 on 7/2/25, 10:30 PM
“Poaching”? It’s called the free market.
Capitalists always hate capitalism when it comes to employees getting paid what they are worth. If the market will bear it, he should embrace it and stop whining.
by 0xbadcafebee on 7/1/25, 8:07 PM
"Talent" doesn't make a business successful, and paychecks aren't the reason most people switch jobs. This is like Sam announcing to the world "it sucks working for our company, don't come here".
by JoshTko on 7/2/25, 5:30 PM
"ChatGPT can you give me a catchy phrase I can use to sway the public discourse against Meta that puts OpenAI in the most favorable light? Also sprinkle in some alliteration if you could"
by otikik on 7/2/25, 8:49 AM
"We are missionaries" is the new "We are a family".
by byyoung3 on 7/2/25, 7:26 AM
then why convert to for-profit?
by Hoasi on 7/2/25, 5:01 PM
Competition is good, right? Open source the models! Open source the employees, too. Why not? Enough with Sam's whining.
by roguecoder on 7/2/25, 7:29 PM
It is hilarious how much capitalists hate capitalism as soon as it benefits workers.
by pier25 on 7/1/25, 8:53 PM
So he believes OpenAI is in some kind of moral or humanitarian mission? Is he lying or just delusional?
by thepasswordis on 7/2/25, 4:59 PM
Remember: we’re all in this together!
Is there a single person that takes what Sam is saying here seriously?
by tempodox on 7/2/25, 2:26 PM
Please, spare me that hypocritical holier-than-thou crap. Who would fall for that?
by HeartStrings on 7/2/25, 6:12 AM
Look… it’s afraid
by PostOnce on 7/2/25, 9:01 AM
Parachute Sam into an island of cannibals, come back in 5 years, and he'll be king. Unless, of course, one of the cannibals is Mark Zuckerberg; then he might just get eaten.
by silent_echo on 7/2/25, 3:42 AM
Suchir Balaji
by gadders on 7/2/25, 8:04 AM
i.e. "I've already made my generational wealth. How dare my employees try and get some for their own families?"
by tehjoker on 7/2/25, 3:33 PM
this shit sounds so fake it makes me want to die. all these capitalist perverts pretending that they believe in anything at all is completely preposterous and is at odds with capitalism. you’re all mercenaries and criminals Sam.
by cs702 on 7/1/25, 7:14 PM
I like sama and many other folks at OpenAI, but I have to call things how I see them:
"What Meta is doing will, in my opinion, lead to very deep cultural problems. We will have more to share about this soon but it's very important to me we do it fairly and not just for people who Meta happened to target."
Translation from corporate-speak: "We're not as rich as Meta."
"Most importantly of all, I think we have the most special team and culture in the world. We have work to do to improve our culture for sure; we have been through insane hypergrowth. But we have the core right in a way that I don't think anyone else quite does, and I'm confident we can fix the problems."
Translation from corporate-speak: "We're not as rich as Meta."
"And maybe more importantly than that, we actually care about building AGI in a good way." "Other companies care more about this as an instrumental goal to some other mission. But this is our top thing, and always will be." "Missionaries will beat mercenaries."
Translation from corporate-speak: "I am high as a kite." (All companies building AGI claim to be doing it in a good way.)
by elzbardico on 7/1/25, 8:14 PM
Said the guy whose life mission seems to be to convert a non-profit into a for-profit entity.
by unit_circle on 7/1/25, 7:48 PM
Side note: I'm noticing more and more of these simple, hyperbolic headlines specifically of statements that public figures make. A hallmark of the event being reported is a public figure making a statement that will surely have little to no effect whatsoever.
Calling these statements "slamming" (a specific word I see with curious frequency) is so riling to me because they are so impotent but are described with such violent and decisive language.
Often it's a politician, usually liberal, and their statement is such an ineffectual waste of time, and outwardly it appears wasting time is most of what they do. I consider myself slightly left of center, so seeing "my group" dither and waste time rather than organize and do real work frustrates me greatly. Especially so since we are provided with such contrast from right of center where there is so much decisive action happening at every moment.
I know it's to feed ranking algorithms, which causes me even more irritation. Watching the brain rot get worse in real time...
by neuroelectron on 7/1/25, 7:30 PM
"Do Not Be Explicitly Useful"—Strategic Uselessness as Liability Buffer
This is a deliberate obfuscation pattern. If the model is ever consistently useful at a high-risk task (e.g., legal advice, medical interpretation, financial strategy), it triggers legal, regulatory, and reputational red flags. a. Utility → Responsibility
If a system is predictably effective, users will reasonably rely on it.
And reliance implies accountability. Courts, regulators, and the public treat consistent output as an implied service, not just a stochastic parrot.
This is where AI providers get scared: being too good makes you an unlicensed practitioner or liable agent.
b. Avoid “Known Use Cases”
Some companies will actively scrub capabilities once they’re discovered to work “too well.”
For instance:
A model that reliably interprets radiology scans might have that capability turned off.
A model that can write compelling legal motions will start refusing prompts that look too paralegal-ish or insert nonsense case law citation.
I think we see this a lot from ChatGPT. It's constantly getting worse in real world uses while exceeding at benchmarks. They're likely, and probably forced, to cheat on benchmarks by using "leaked" data.
by fossuser on 7/1/25, 10:18 PM
I hope xAI wins. I think Sam's self-portrayal as a missionary has a lot of irony - I see him as the ultimate mercenary.
It's always challenging to judge based entirely on public perceptions, but at some point public evidence adds up. The board firing, getting maybe fired from YC (disputed), people leaving to start anthropic because of him, people stating they don't want him in charge of AGI. All the other execs leaving. His lying in congress, his lying to the board, his general affect just seems off - not in an aspie way, but in some dishonest way. Yeah it's subjective, but it's a point and it's different from Zuckerberg, Musk etc. who come across as earnest. Even PG said if dropped on an island of cannibals you'd come back and Sam would be king.
I'm rooting for basically any of the other (American) players in the game to win.
At least Zuck is paying something close to the value these people might generate instead of having them sign hostile agreements to claw back their equity and then feigning ignorance. If NBA all stars get 100M$+ contracts, it's not crazy for a John Carmack type to command the same or more - the hard part is being able to identify the talent, not justify the value created by the leverage of the correct talent (which is huge).