news

senior executives resigned one after another, which made ultraman somewhat embarrassed. if it’s not embarrassing enough, musk is there to add to the mix.

no, musk retweeted a post on ultraman was the only one left. the intention is obvious, this refers to the wave of executive departures at openai.

"ultraman sam is littlefinger."musk reposted without forgetting to ridicule.

warm reminder: "littlefinger" is a character in the american tv series "game of thrones". he is cunning and insidious, hungry for power, and has played many intrigues on the way up.

of course, you can also put it in a nicer way: a smart careerist, a ruthless master of strategy, a seductive and multi-faceted person.

openai has seen a succession of senior executives leave this year, with 13 senior executives leaving, including many of the company’s co-founders. currently, only three of the company's 11 co-founders, including altman, remain.

last thursday, september 26, openai chief technology officer mira murati also announced her resignation. at the same time, two important executives announced their resignation: barrett zoff, vice president of research (barret zoph) and principal investigator bob mcgrew.

in public, ultraman began to be frequently asked relevant questions. regarding the latest executive resignation incident, altman still uses "three clicks" as in the past: affirmation, blessing, and denial.

affirm his ability and contribution to the company, bless his future development, and deny that his departure is related to the company's changes.

altman explains that leadership changes are "a natural part of the company." in other words, the company is what it is, and executives come and go, nothing special about it.

but the doubts from the outside world are not groundless. on the one hand,OpenAIat a very critical moment, not only is an important round offinancing(the company's valuation is expected to reach 150 billion us dollars), and it is also possible that the company's organizational form will be changed and it will completely shift to a commercial nature.

on the other hand, the departure of one executive after another has to make people question ultraman, the power center of openai. during the excavation of the "behind-the-scenes story", an ultraman with deep knowledge and good use of power was sketched out. on the road to building the openai empire, there is no one he can’t live without.

this lone ranger trait coincides with musk's. while joking about ultraman being "little finger", musk seemed to forget that if life is like a play, then he is also on the stage.

existteslaon the way to the continuous growth of companies such as , spacex, and x, musk himself has also seen off many companions, including many who turned against him. especially this year, musk, who "operated" on tesla, also experienced a wave of pain, losing 10 senior executives in one month.

if ultraman is the "littlefinger" in "game of thrones", then musk is roughly the "thanos" in the marvel universe: his ability is top-notch, his background is sadness, and he can do anything for the sake of his vision.

A

both altman and musk have experienced labor pains this year, experiencing a wave of executive resignations, and the reasons for the pain are "changing." it might be more appropriate to say it the other way around -in order to change, it’s okay to have some pain.

openai is at a critical juncture: it is currently financing, facing restructuring, and the common theme is to accelerate the commercialization process.

although the way openai operates is indistinguishable from other commercial companies, in fact it has always had legacy problems with its organizational form. this problem became highlighted when altman was suddenly dismissed by the former board of directors at the end of last year.

previously, multiple foreign media reported that openai is planning to restructure its core business and transform it into a for-profit public welfare enterprise, breaking away from the control of a non-profit board of directors.

at the recent italian technology week conference, altman admitted that "we have been thinking about this issue (reorganization)" and said that this thinking has been going on for nearly a year.

chatgpt currently has more than 200 million users, but its subscription revenue is far from enough to support openai. previously, the information had estimated that openai’s annual losses would be as high as us$5 billion in 2024. the main source of funding for openai has always been microsoft, which always invests heavily and can inject $10 billion of "energy" into it at a time.

openai, which continues to develop (continues to burn money), needs more diversified investors, and the current financing is particularly important.

the scale of financing is huge, estimated at us$6.5 billion, and the target valuation is also extremely high, reaching us$150 billion. it is worth noting that among the investors, it was previously rumored that nvidia, apple, etc. may participate in this round of financing.

restructuring will also help openai attract investors.judging from openai's various actions, ultraman is determined to continue to deepen the commercialization process, but the company's transformation period is bound to cause internal friction.openai, founded as a non-profit organization, has attracted many idealistic technology backbones, but they may not like the new openai: when they joined, openai was a research organization, and now, it has become more and more like an ordinary technology company.

just look at mulati's resignation.

the information quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that in order to release gpt-4o before the google conference, openai was running at full speed this year, and employees even had to work 20 hours a day. even so, the testing was still incomplete. in the end, gpt-4o successfully "sneaked" and was released on may 14 this year before the google conference.

at that time, the online press conference was hosted by chief technology officer mulati, who then accepted an exclusive interview with the media. he had to face many sharp questions, including openai's security issues and data source issues. she bravely fought with the media and was once made into an emoticon and became a joke among netizens.

mulati's departure occurred after gpt-4o was fully launched, and this departure also took away two other senior executives.

in may of this year, when openai’s former security director and super team leader jan leike announced his resignation on reached the critical point.”

although the words are vague, they may reveal the motivations of many executives who left openai.

B

altman will not be unclear about the reasons for the departure of senior executives, but for him, the departure of senior executives with differences may be the only way for openai to "evolve".

musk followed the same path this year. in may of this year, tesla’s senior management team experienced a sudden wave of resignations after several years of stability. within a month, 10 senior executives announced their resignation. behind this wave of executive departures, musk performed surgery on tesla.

in april, musk met with chairman of catl during his brief visit to chinazeng yuqunafter a brief meeting, there was speculation that musk might be considering asking tesla to shift from self-developed batteries to purchasing products from more suppliers. after all, tesla’s 4680 battery has been a key research and development project in the past four years. its production capacity, performance and cost performance is unsatisfactory. later, musk announced a global layoff, with more than 6,000 employees laid off in texas and california alone, and the entire supercharger team.

"hopefully this action makes it clear that we need to remain absolutely firm on headcount and cost cutting. while some executives are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so," musk told quanzhou at the time. the employee said this when sending the email. it was also during this period that the wave of tesla executive resignations hit.

people who don't "take this issue seriously" are likely to be executives who have differences with musk.

rich otto, tesla's head of product launch, also left after seven years and publicly clarified his differences with his former boss musk: "great companies are made up of great employees and great products, and great companies are made up of great employees and great products. products are only possible if employees thrive. recent layoffs have shaken the company and its morale, and it's hard to see the time for change in the long term."

by the way, mulati also said something similar. in the openai "palace change" incident, altman was suddenly kicked out of the board of directors and resigned from his position as ceo. openai experienced a huge shock in a few days. the most dramatic moment was when almost all employees signed a joint letter asking the then board of directors to bring altman back, otherwise they would all resign. at that time, mulati stood on ultraman's side and said: "without people, openai has nothing."

now it seems that openai cannot live without people, but ultraman can change people as needed.

if we insist on making a wish, if the wave of executive resignations is bound to happen, it might as well happen more quickly.

last saturday, september 28, the wall street journal revealed that apple chose to withdraw from negotiations at the last minute before the completion of openai’s new round of financing. the giant's withdrawal from financing is bad news for openai. what's even worse is that this round of financing was originally scheduled to be completed as early as the next week.

apple's withdrawal casts a shadow on openai's critical financing. apple's withdrawal came just after three senior executives from openai, including mulati, resigned. the wall street journal speculates that the reason why many investors have not finalized a final agreement is because they still have doubts about openai. the lack of independent hematopoietic capabilities is a concern, and the talent crisis is also a concern.

in order to achieve the vision he has outlined for the company, he discarded executives who gradually became divided. in this matter, altman may have to learn from musk, long-term pain is worse than short-term pain.

C

beyond the "only way", whether it is musk or altman, their own personalities and management methods are probably the reason why they are destined to be lonely.

in the face of vision, no one is a forever bound partner. on the other side of walking alone is the almost inevitable "cold-bloodedness".

needless to say, musk is like thanos in the marvel universe. he snaps his fingers towards the target without blinking.

when he took over twitter, musk immediately fired four former executives, including twitter's former ceo parag agrawal and cfo ned segal. until this year, four former executives were still suing musk, demanding $128 million in severance pay.

ella irwin, x’s former director of trust and safety, who has been working for musk for more than half a year, described it as the “most difficult experience” of her career. after musk took over, he hoped to "move quickly and make changes." irving did not foresee the subsequent large-scale layoffs. in the process of working together, musk was also more impulsive than she imagined.

but she also understands musk to a certain extent: "musk is very good at questioning everything, simplifying things to the most basic principles, and removing restrictions. this can be very useful when you need to push a lot of changes quickly."

perhaps as tesla’s former vice president of finance and operations sreela venkataratnam said: “this is definitely not for the faint of heart!” in august this year, she had worked for tesla for 11 years. also chose to leave.

ultraman shows completely different qualities. when openai first became famous for chatgpt, this young man who always wore a pullover and jeans, spoke slowly and even lacked the ups and downs of his voice gave people a gentle impression.

but now, people are beginning to think that ultraman is a master of power.

as early as may of this year, helen toner, a former openai board member and director of strategy at the center for security and emerging technology at georgetown university in the united states, who participated in the "palace change" of openai, had a rather fierce attack on ultraman. criticism.

as mentioned earlier, openai’s organizational form is quite special and is controlled by a non-profit board of directors. the priority of a not-for-profit board should be the public interest.

however, toner said that altman had concealed information, distorted facts, and even directly lied to the former board of directors when promoting openai's commercialization process (such as the launch of chatgpt, the launch of gpts, deepening cooperation with microsoft, etc.). executives also told board members that altman was "emotionally abusive" to employees.

she even mentioned that ultraman’s scheming and “untrustworthy” nature did not begin during the openai period. earlier, altman served as the ceo of loopt, the social media company he founded. at that time, loopt executives came to the board of directors twice, reflecting altman's deceptive behavior within the company and causing chaos in the company. when he left y combinator (yc), a well-known incubator in silicon valley, he was fired instead of leaving on his own.

paul graham, the co-founder of yc, can be regarded as altman’s boss and mentor. he commented: “some people stop after making enough money, but sam seems to be interested in money. the degree is not particularly large. another possibility is that the reason why he did openai is that he prefers power.”

after mulati and others resigned, the information published a report revealing the "inside story."

the report stated that behind the wave of resignations of openai executives is increasingly serious internal fighting and increasingly prominent salary issues. some executives feel that within the company, the projects they are responsible for are being ignored or even treated unfairly because they are not at the center of openai's commercial interests.

the most critical thing is that ultraman himself failed to solve internal problems well, and in many cases he was even the catalyst.

because altman often avoided making decisions, forcing others like president greg brockman to take more responsibility. brockman is currently one of the three remaining co-founders of openai. although he has not resigned, he previously announced that he would take a long vacation.

they both have a high goal orientation, but the difference is that musk is in the light and ultraman is in the dark.

looking back in 2018, musk and altman, who had co-founded openai, parted ways. musk's attempt to tighten control over openai failed, so he simply left. ultraman was selected during that disagreement and became the ceo of openai, standing at the center of power. perhaps this outcome has already been determined. how can two lone rangers go together?

as for everyone else. do you want your boss to "fuck" you openly or secretly? i believe that no migrant worker can make a choice happily.

regarding this problem, it seems that there is another way to find a way out on your own: walk away. just as many executives who have worked under musk and altman have already made the choice.

but for musk and altman, if the vision comes true—whether it’s a vision of power, or a vision of changing the world—why be afraid of being alone?

references:

1. jiemian news: "ten tesla executives resigned within a month, and musk centralized his power to return to the car business"

2. tencent technology: "ex-executive x: working for musk for more than half a year was the "most difficult experience" in my career"

3. latepost: "altman's road to power"

4. daily economic news: "the dispute between "control maniacs" and "power masters"! musk quits openai insider exposure》

5. zhidongxi: "three openai executives resigned on the same day! already lost 13 executives this year》