To me, this seems consistent with just maximizing shareholder value. … “being the good guys” lets you get the best people at significant discounts.
This is pretty different from my model of what happened with OpenAI or Anthropic—especially the latter, where the founding team left huge equity value on the table by departing (OpenAI’s equity had already appreciated something like 10x between the first MSFT funding round and EOY 2020, when they departed).
And even for Sam and OpenAI, this would seem like a kind of wild strategy for pursuing wealth for someone who already had the network and opportunities he had pre-OpenAI?
With the change to for-profit and Sam receiving equity, it seems like the strategy will pay off. However, this might be hindsight bias, or I might otherwise have a too simplified view.
This is pretty different from my model of what happened with OpenAI or Anthropic—especially the latter, where the founding team left huge equity value on the table by departing (OpenAI’s equity had already appreciated something like 10x between the first MSFT funding round and EOY 2020, when they departed).
And even for Sam and OpenAI, this would seem like a kind of wild strategy for pursuing wealth for someone who already had the network and opportunities he had pre-OpenAI?
With the change to for-profit and Sam receiving equity, it seems like the strategy will pay off. However, this might be hindsight bias, or I might otherwise have a too simplified view.