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Because Musk is fighting with OpenAI lawsuit, a lot of private emails that were not public have been disclosed, The Verge based on the email conversation records, combed out the OpenAI company in the early top design of the timeline, although a lot of verbal words, but connected to look very interesting, the real business war is so plain and simple:
– In 2015, OpenAI didn’t exist yet, its predecessor was Y Combinator’s AI lab, and Sam Altman, who was still the president of YC at the time, paid $10 million out of his own pocket as an investment, and then started recruiting people all over the place;
– At this point Musk suggested that he would have to raise at least $100 million, as any capital below that would be easily crushed by Google and Facebook
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– Sam Altman emailed Musk to pull his heart out, saying that he’s been thinking about whether he should choose to stop AI for the sake of humanity, and that if it’s just not possible to stop it, then the leadership of AI would probably be right if it could be in the hands of a company other than Google;
– Then OpenAI went out on its own, and Musk proposed a small goal of raising $1 billion up front, leaving Sam Altman to find as much money as he could and promising to make up the final shortfall himself;
– Because OpenAI was unassuming in Silicon Valley at the time, and completely unable to recruit top talent, Sam Altman devised a radical compensation package: a base salary of $175,000 per year, plus 0.25% of each tranche of YC equity grants;
– Sam Altman told Musk that it would be a ‘Manhattan Project’ for the AI industry, hoping to attract 50 top researchers to join, and that while the company would remain non-profit, employees who put in the work would still be rewarded in a similar way to a start-up;
– In 2016, DeepMind, Google’s AI lab, noticed OpenAI’s moves and started calling everyone OpenAI contacted to cut them off at exponential pay;
– Sam Altman很慌
, wrote Musk another email in a huff, hoping for approval to bump his annual salary up $100,000-$200,000 higher, or else DeepMind had won the war early;
– Musk agreed, the early team all got paid close to $300,000 + floating equity, and Musk even contributed SpaceX stock equivalents to fill the hole as well;
– There were three exceptions, Greg (later president), Ilya (later chief scientist), and Trevor (later researcher), who got higher salaries, but Sam Altman doesn’t seem to have placed himself there;
– Ilya earned more than $1.9 million in 2016, which helped him resist solicitations from Google to some extent;
– Musk expressed his approval of OpenAI’s paychecks being so generous at a time when there was nothing, “We continue to do everything we can to attract head talent, and if a raise will solve the problem, that’s great, and I’ll take whatever I can pay as long as I don’t get beat by DeepMind.”
– Musk was so disgusted with Google by that point that he told Sam Altman that he was exploding with mental stress at the mere thought that DeepMind might be the winner, and that he could never let Google rule the world
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– In 2016, OpenAI was still short of money, especially because it couldn’t afford to buy a chip, and Sam Altman went to Microsoft and talked about a program that exchanged $10 million for the equivalent of $60 million in arithmetic resources, on the condition that OpenAI use Microsoft’s Azure cloud service and help publicize it in technical circles;
– Musk tells Sam Atlman it’s fucking disgusting.
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– Sam Altman went back to talk to Microsoft, and the new offer was that Microsoft would contribute $50 million, no strings attached, and the partnership could be terminated at any time, and Sam Altman told Musk with a grudge that he didn’t look like a Microsoft lickspittle anymore, so he was satisfied.
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– Musk relentlessly emailed back that he also had to ask Microsoft not to send out press releases mentioning this, and that just not being a Microsoft lickspittle would be worth several $50 million dollars;
– In 2017, OpenAI was preparing for a new round of funding, and the people Musk had installed – with a woman on the board who would later give Musk three children – told Musk that the founding team wasn’t too happy with Musk coming in as CEO because they felt Musk was running too many companies to devote 100% of his time to OpenAI;
– It was a time when Tesla was just a few steps away from the brink of bankruptcy, Musk was burnt out in the flesh, uninterested in OpenAI’s little whims, and emailed the mole back to say “Bother them, let them run the company, I’m sick of it.”
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– It didn’t take long for Ilya and Greg to push ahead with the icebreaker plan, writing long emails copied to both Sam Altman and Musk, saying that they were concerned about Sam altman’s obsession with the CEO title, questioning his loyalty to AGI’s ideals, and at the same time explaining to Musk that they rejected him for the CEO job because they knew that his character was bound to pursue absolute control of AGI;
– In other words, at the heart of their misgivings is the fact that while the risks of AI are huge, picking out one person to control AI, which screws up even more, they want to conceive of a more decentralized governance structure;
– Musk and Sam Altman at this time are crushed inside, what things are not done out on the shelves of this a meal analysis, a variety of how to decide the fate of mankind’s grand narrative, Musk directly reply, said the discussion is over, if you just treat me as just money is enough for the kaiju, I will run away;
– Sam Altman appeased his coworkers outwardly by saying he was confident in the nonprofit nature of the company, but privately said that Greg and Ilya were too naive at times, and that he would have to take a leave of absence to figure out whether or not he could still trust them not to stab him in the back
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– In 2018, Musk judged that OpenAI had fallen completely behind DeepMind’s progress and once again proposed that he be CEO or it would be impossible to win over Google, and OpenAI’s founding team rejected him anyway, leading to Musk’s withdrawal from the board and the cessation of capital grants;
– Suddenly missing Musk’s money briefly put OpenAI in a passive position, and in order to get financing, OpenAI changed the company for the first time, devising a structure such as a limited-profit corporation controlled by a nonprofit organization;
– Musk, by this time, had begun to realize the importance of preserving evidence needed for future lawsuits, and emailed Sam Altman to ask for clear proof that he (Musk) had no interest in the new corporate structure in return, and Sam Altman cleanly messaged back, “Roger that.”
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– The Verge’s summary is that the power struggle around OpenAI essentially stems from the clash of two visions going in very different directions, and that the message, at least from the emails, is that OpenAI was able to turn the tide against the wind and reach the heights it has today without the driving force provided by Sam Altman, who has always been able to get what he wants at any cost, while Musk has no shortage of power, who wants revenge for any slight against him and is convinced that he is the one in charge of AGI. While Musk has no shortage of power, he wants revenge for all slights against him and is convinced that he is the grand steward of AGI.