There is a factor that may be causing people who have been released to not report it publicly:
When I received the email from OpenAI HR releasing me from the non-disparagement agreement, I wanted to publicly acknowledge that fact. But then I noticed that, awkwardly, I was still bound not to acknowledge that it had existed in the first place. So I didn’t think I could say, for example, “OpenAI released me from my non-disparagement agreement” or “I used to be bound by a non-disparagement agreement, but now I’m not.”
So I didn’t say anything about it publicly. Instead, I replied to HR asking for permission to disclose the previous non-disparagement agreement. Thankfully they gave it to me, which is why I’m happy to talk about it now. But if I hadn’t taken the initiative to email them I would have been more hesitant to reveal that I had been released from the non-disparagement agreement.
I don’t know if any other ex-OpenAI employees are holding back for similar reasons. I may have been unusually cautious or pedantic about this. But it seemed worth mentioning in case I’m not the only one.
Oh, interesting. Thanks for pointing that out! It looks like my comment above may not apply to post-2019 employees.
(I was employed in 2017, when OpenAI was still just a non-profit. So I had no equity and therefore there was no language in my exit agreement that threatened to take my equity. The equity-threatening stuff only applies to post-2019 employees, and their release emails were correspondingly different.)
The language in my email was different. It released me from non-disparagement and non-solicitation, but nothing else:
”OpenAI writes to notify you that it is releasing you from any non-disparagement and non-solicitation provision within any such agreement.”