Why I Joined OpenAI(www.brendangregg.com)
61 pointsby SerCe2 hours ago14 comments
  • brendangreggan hour ago
    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.
    • politelemonan hour ago
      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?
    • AnonHP26 minutes ago
      I’m replying to your comment in the hopes of getting a response. In the blog post, you said:

      > There's so many interesting things to work on, things I have done before and things I haven't.

      What are the things you haven’t done before, if you could mention them?

    • bahmbooan hour ago
      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]
    • jcgrillo40 minutes ago
      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?

    • kgravesan hour ago
      > 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.

      • 8069652789017 minutes ago
        They're Making the world a better place™
        • rvz6 minutes ago
          For the Benefit of Humanity®
    • brendangreggg35 minutes ago
      [dead]
    • username22338 minutes ago
      > 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.

      • gghffguhvc33 minutes ago
        I believe him. I don’t know him personally but his blog posts pop up here from time to time and this feels genuine to me.
        • buzzerbetrayed20 minutes ago
          You believe someone taking a fat paycheck isn’t doing it for the fat paycheck?

          Wanna buy a bridge?

          • surajrmal5 minutes ago
            Humans are complex and have multiple sources of motivation. You don't know whether he took the offer with the highest pay. He's likely wealthy enough that he can pay less attention to his income and focus on his other sources of motivation if he wants to. That's not to say pay is not a factor in his choice, but it need not be the only or primary one. This is a luxury of the privileged for sure, which can make it difficult to relate to.
    • DeepYogurtan hour ago
      You gonna open source it?
  • Banditoz2 hours ago
    > ...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)

    • robby_w_g34 minutes ago
      Reminds me of when I was younger and thought of companies like Google and Tesla as a force for good that will create and use technology to make people's lives better. Surely OpenAI and these LLM companies will change the world for the better, right? They wouldn't burn down our planet for short-term monetary gain, right?

      I've learned over the years that I was naive and it's a coincidence if the tech giants make people's lives better. That's not their goal.

    • Thaxllan hour ago
      The AI train is going with or without you, if you can be part of it and improve the situaton, why not.
      • noosphr2 minutes ago
        You'd rather not be on board when it goes right off a cliff.
    • petterroea23 minutes ago
      Even a 25% reduction in resource usage will probably not be enough, AI datacenters are still a huge resource sink after all
      • skybrian14 minutes ago
        I imagine there's a lot more to be gained than that via algorithmic improvements. But at least in the short term, the more you cut costs (and prices), the more usage will increase.
    • its-kostyaan hour ago
      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.

      • tayo42an hour ago
        They're going to grow either way. Those new workloads are going to be run
        • its-kostyaan hour ago
          Ya, we know. Just humbling the author ;)
    • wheelerwj2 hours ago
      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.

      • selectodudean hour ago
        He interviewed everywhere and took the biggest offer. Good! Don’t piss on my face and tell me it’s raining.
        • ahf8Aithaex7Nai31 minutes ago
          It's raining anyway. If I piss on your face, I can at least try to make the experience as positive as possible for you.
    • mewpmewp22 hours ago
      [flagged]
  • matt_daemonan hour ago
    > 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?

    • Insanityan hour ago
      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.

      • CreepGinan hour ago
        You missed the sarcasm.
        • Insanity28 minutes ago
          Lol, I did. Needed a /s!
  • indigodaddyan hour ago
    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.
    • notepad0x9042 minutes ago
      It's a blog post, not an article. A narrative of events, not an interesting write-up on a topic.
  • ahf8Aithaex7Nai10 minutes ago
    Apparently, there's this guy who's really good at optimizing computer performance and makes a lot of money doing it. At the same time, he writes mediocre school essays that are actually a bit embarrassing. Guys, if you have the opportunity to land a very well-paid job, then do it. Take the money. Live your life. But please spare us the public self-castration.
  • amluto2 hours ago
    > 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.

    • an hour ago
      undefined
    • UltraSanean hour ago
      I use it as something to talk to about incredibly nerdy and/or obscure things no one else would be willing to talk about.
    • peytonan hour ago
      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.
  • SanjayMehtaan hour ago
    > save the planet > I'd been missing that human connection

    At OpenAI.

  • thinkingkong2 hours ago
    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.
    • ojbyrne2 hours ago
      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.

    • sgarlandan hour ago
      Seriously. I would expect him to be more of an offer-only scenario.
    • 7e2 hours ago
      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.
  • an hour ago
    undefined
  • light_triadan hour ago
    Mia was right. Listen to Mia
  • I_am_tiberius2 hours ago
    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.
    • surajrmalan hour ago
      No single person other than Sam Altman can stop them from using anonymized interactions for training and metrics. At least in the consumer tiers.
    • satvikpendeman hour ago
      It's a little too late for that, all the models train on prompts and responses.
  • dforsythe2 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • zombiwoof2 hours ago
    [dead]
  • rvz2 hours ago
    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.

    • patrickaljord2 hours ago
      Unless OpenAI goes with a very liberal definition of AGI, he's going to wait decades for AGI.
      • Insanityan hour ago
        They’re already trying to redefine the AGI playing field by doing so.
    • thefounderan hour ago
      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)