Sam Altman tells staff there’s no plan for him to receive ‘giant equity stake’

The timing of the executive departures is extremely suspicious. There's clearly a major shift happening here in Altman's favor, and even if he's not getting equity now it seems inevitable at this point.

As others have noted, the wording here is also highly suspect: "no current plans" for a "giant equity stake" gives him at least two different paths to claim he never lied about the situation if and when he gets equity.

I’m reading the sequel to Robert Grave’s classic, I, Claudius. In it, Cæsar Claudius describes the Imperial Senate’s process of proactive prostration.

The Emperor never requests favours. Instead, ambitious Senators must guess his desires and offer them to him, at which point a song and dance is done about his refusing and the Senate insisting and him, reluctantly, accepting the honor.

When you're saying the investors are demanding it, the board is saying they've discussed it but don't have specific numbers, saying there are no "current plans" is pretty weak tea as a denial. Okay, there's no plan today but you're... actively working on one?

There are concepts of a plan, though.

How much credibility do you reckon Sam Altman's words have these days?

Indeed, I heard there are plans for a giant equity stake to be awarded to a company called Notsam Naltman, LLC, which would leave nothing left to give to Sam Altman.

> investors have raised concerns about Altman not having equity in the high-valued artificial intelligence company that he co-founded

I think here lies the interesting point. I’m not gonna try to mindread Sam and guess at what his true intentions are, but the investors’ intentions are clear: align Sam’s incentives with profit. I wish him the best of luck in navigating this.

He went on to tell them that he's only expecting a wee little equity stake that's just a single digit percentage.

There's a rather simple reason why this is believable: as a board member of OpenAI Inc (the non profit), he is a disqualified person under self dealing rules [1][2]. If he actually gave himself a multi-billion dollar stake in the for-profit OpenAI Global LLC, it'd be the biggest self-dealing investigation in the history of nonprofits. The IRS and CA FTB would come down hard and OpenAI & Sam would spend a year+ dealing with the fallout.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation...

[2] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundation...

If he does get equity (not options) then he'll have to pay taxes on it at the 409a valuation which is usually lower than market, but would still be crazy high.

Why would he care about mere money when he gets to be the one to merge with the thing, burning like the brightest star?

I'm trying not to be pessimistic, but the level of trust and faith that I have in Sam Altman is very low.

Whenever I see him speak, he is vague and evasive. He either is untrustworthy or just has no idea what’s going on.

I am pretty sure this started brewing in the pot when o1 and it's pricing models were conceptualized

He would have to deny it, even if there were none of the shenanigans surrounding all this.

That's exactly what someone trying to maximize the value of their equity would say.

I think the only surprise in this is that he isn’t launching a crypto rug pull.

I think he deserves every dollar he can get to protect us from robot overlords!

Don’t google that I’m getting a $5B stock grant vibes

Liars will lie to advance their position.

He also denied OpenAI will be a for-profit company. Yet, here we are.

When billions of dollars are up for grabs, values, ethics, morality, past promises and everything else in between will be thrown out the window.

For society, the framework should always be that a corporation is inherently evil. It is only a matter of time when that evil presents itself.

A masterclass in the classic rug pull.

>Regarding his potentially attaining an equity stake, Altman said, “There are no current plans here,” the person said.

>OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor told CNBC in a statement that while the board has talked about the matter, no specific figures are on the table.

>“The board has had discussions about whether it would be beneficial to the company and our mission to have Sam be compensated with equity, but no specific figures have been discussed nor have any decisions been made,” Taylor said.

So, they're definitely talking about it and it's definitely an option. Yes, technically, there might not be a definitive plan, but the intent and want are both there, and at no point has anybody flatly said, "There will be no equity stake".

Given Sam's history, none of what was said by them today means anything at all, and it cannot be trusted. This is just corporate weasel-wording.

revisit this in a few years

Revisit in a few years. I am sure he will get something.

Cool story bro

So what you are saying is that we need to keep guessing at the scam you are running.

Because there is always a scam

Sam Altman seems like a really shady guy. The tech community wont forget. Im sure there is better alternatives to OpenAI already, and new ones coming in the future.

"That was child's play for me"