[hinterlands]

It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience.

I don't think this makes OpenAI special. It's just a good reminder that the overwhelming majority of "why I left" posts are basically trying to justify why a person wasn't a good fit for an organization by blaming it squarely on the organization.

Look at it this way: the flip side of "incredibly bottoms-up" from this article is that there are people who feel rudderless because there is no roadmap or a thing carved out for them to own. Similarly, the flip side of "strong bias to action" and "changes direction on a dime" is that everything is chaotic and there's no consistent vision from the executives.

This cracked me up a bit, though: "As often as OpenAI is maligned in the press, everyone I met there is actually trying to do the right thing" - yes! That's true at almost every company that ends up making morally questionable decisions! There's no Bond villain at the helm. It's good people rationalizing things. It goes like this: we're the good guys. If we were evil, we could be doing things so much worse than X! Sure, some might object to X, but they miss the big picture: X is going to indirectly benefit the society because we're going to put the resulting money and power to good use. Without us, you could have the bad guys doing X instead!

[harmonic18374]

I would never post any criticism of an employer in public. It can only harm my own career (just as being positive can only help it).

Given how vengeful Altman can reportedly be, this goes double for OpenAI. This guy even says they scour social media!

Whether subconsciously or not, one purpose of this post is probably to help this guy’s own personal network along; to try and put his weirdly short 14-month stint in the best possible light. I think it all makes him look like a mark, which is desirable for employers, so I guess it is working.

[m00x]

Calvin cofounded Segment that had a $3.2B acquisition. He's not your typical employee.

[44520297]

>This guy even says they scour social media!

Every, and I mean every, technology company scours social media. Amazon has a team that monitors social media posts to make sure employees, their spouses, their friends don’t leak info, for example.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

> There's no Bond villain at the helm. It's good people rationalizing things.

I worked for a few years at a company that made software for casinos, and this was absolutely not the case there. Casinos absolutely have fully shameless villains at the helm.

[stickfigure]

Interesting. A year ago I joined one of the larger online sportsbook/casinos. In terms of talent, employees are all over the map (both good and bad). But I have yet to meet a villain. Everyone here is doing the best they can.

[lucianbr]

> We are all very good and kind and not at all evil, trust us if we do say so ourselves

Do these people have even minimal self-awareness?

[darkmarmot]

VGT?

[Bratmon]

> It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience

Much more common for OpenAI, because you lose all your vested equity if you talk negatively about OpenAI after leaving.

[rvz]

Absolutely correct.

There is a reason why there was a cult-like behaviour on X amongst the employees in supporting to bringing back Sam as CEO when he was kicked out by the OpenAI board of directors at the time.

"OpenAI is nothing without it's people"

All of "AGI" (which actually was the lamborghinis, penthouses, villas and mansions for the employees) was all on the line and on hold if that equity went to 0 or would be denied selling their equity if they openly criticized OpenAI after they left.

[fragmede]

The Silenced No More Act" (SB 331), effective January 1, 2022, in California, where OpenAI is based, limits non-disparagement clauses and retribution by employers, likely making that illegal in California, but I am not a lawyer.

[tedsanders]

OpenAI never enforced this, removed it, and admitted it was a big mistake. I work at OpenAI and I'm disappointed it happened but am glad they fixed it. It's no longer hanging over anyone's head, so it's probably inaccurate to suggest that Calvin's post is positive because he's trying to protect his equity from being taken. (though of course you could argue that everyone is biased to be positive about companies they own equity in, generally)

[torginus]

Here's what I think - while Altman was busy trying to convince the public the AGI was coming in the next two weeks, with vague tales that were equaly ominous and utopistic, he (and his fellow leaders) have been extremely busy at trying hard to turn OpenAI into a product company with some killer offerings, and from the article, it seems they were rather good and successful in that.

Considering the high stakes, money, and undoubtedly the ego involved, the writer might have acquired a few bruises along the way, or might have lost out on some political in fights (remember how they mentioned they built multiple Codex prototypes, it must've sucked to see some other people's version chosen instead of your own).

Another possible explanation is that the writer's just had enough - enough money to last a lifetime, just started a family, made his mark on the world, and was no longer compelled (or have been able to) keep up with methed-up fresh college grads.

[matco11]

> remember how they mentioned they built multiple Codex prototypes, it must've sucked to see some other people's version chosen instead of your own

Well it depends on people’s mindset. It’s like doing a hackathon and not winning. Most people still leave inspired by what they have seen other people building, and can’t wait to do it again.

…but of course not everybody likes to go to hackathons

[sensanaty]

> There's no Bond villain at the helm

We're talking about Sam Altman here, right, the dude behind Worldcoin? A literal bond-villainesque biological data harvesting scheme?

[ben_w]

It might be one of the cover stories for a Bond villain, but they have lots of mundane cover stories. Which isn't to say you're wrong, I've learned not to trust my gut in the category (rich business leaders) to which he belongs.

I'd be more worried about the guy who tweeted “If this works, I’m treating myself to a volcano lair. It’s time.” and more recently wore a custom T-shirt that implies he's like Vito Corleone.

[teiferer]

There is lots of rationalizing going on in his article.

> I returned early from my paternity leave to help participate in the Codex launch.

10 years from now, the significance of having participated in that launch will be ridiculously small (unless you tell yourself that it was a pivotal moment of your life, even if it objectively wasn't) versus those first weeks with your newborn will never come back. Kudos to your partner though.

[baggachipz]

The very fact that he did this exemplifies everything that is wrong about the tech industry and our current society. He's praising himself for this instead of showing remorse for his failure as a parent.

[usaar333]

Odd take. Openai gives 5 months of paternity leave and author is independently wealthy. What difference does it make between spending more time with a 4 month old vs a 4 year old? Or is your prescription that people should just be retiring once they have children?

[Aurornis]

> It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience.

The opposite is true: Most ex-employee stories are overly positive and avoid anything negative. They’re just not shared widely because they’re not interesting most of the time.

I was at a company that turned into the most toxic place I had ever worked due to a CEO who decided to randomly get involved with projects, yell at people, and even fire some people on the spot.

Yet a lot of people wrote glowing stories about their time at the company on blogs or LinkedIn because it was beneficial for their future job search.

> It's just a good reminder that the overwhelming majority of "why I left" posts are basically trying to justify why a person wasn't a good fit for an organization by blaming it squarely on the organization.

For the posts that make HN I rarely see it that way. The recent trend is for passionate employees who really wanted to make a company work to lament how sad it was that the company or department was failing.

[eddythompson80]

> The opposite is true: Most ex-employee stories are overly positive and avoid anything negative. They’re just not shared widely because they’re not interesting most of the time.

Yeah I had to re-read the sentence.

The positive "Farewell" post is indeed the norm. Especially so from well known, top level people in a company.

[bigiain]

> It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience.

Sure, but this bit really makes me wonder if I'd like to see what the writer is prepared to do to other people to get to his payday:

"Nabeel Quereshi has an amazing post called Reflections on Palantir, where he ruminates on what made Palantir special. I wanted to do the same for OpenAI"

[iLoveOncall]

Well, as a reminder OpenAI has a non disparagement clause in their contracts, so the only thing you'll ever see from former employees is positive feedback.

[Spooky23]

I’m not saying this about OpenAI, because I just don’t know. But Bond villains exist.

Usually the level 1 people are just motivated by power and money to an unhealthy degree. The worst are true believers in something. Even something seemingly mild.

[Wilder7977]

Allow me to propose a different rationalization: "yes I know X might damage some people/society, but it was not me who decided, and I get lots of money to do it, which someone else would do if not me."

I don't think people who work on products that spy on people, create addiction or worse are as naïve as you portrayed them.

[ben_w]

> It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience.

FWIW, I have positive experiences about many of my former employers. Not all of them, but many of them.

[yen223]

Same here. If I wrote an honest piece about my last employer, it would sound very similar in tone to what was written in this article

[Timwi]

> everyone I met there is actually trying to do the right thing" - yes! That's true at almost every company that ends up making morally questionable decisions!

The operative word is “trying”. You can “try” to do the right thing but find yourself restricted by various constraints. If an employee actually did the right thing (e.g. publish the weights of all their models, or shed light on how they were trained and on what), they get fired. If the CEO or similarly high-ranking exec actually did the right thing, the company would lose out on profits. So, rationalization is all they can do. “I'm trying to do the right thing, but.” “People don't see the big picture because they're not CEOs and don't understand the constraints.”

[newswasboring]

> It goes like this: we're the good guys. If we were evil, we could be doing things so much worse than X! Sure, some might object to X, but they miss the big picture: X is going to indirectly benefit the society because we're going to put the resulting money and power to good use. Without us, you could have the bad guys doing X instead!

This is a great insight. But if we think a bit deeper about why that happens, I land on because there is nobody forcing anyone to do the right thing. Our governments and laws are geared more towards preventing people from doing the wrong thing, which of course can only be identified once someone has done the wrong thing and we can see the consequences and prove that it was indeed the wrong thing. Sometimes we fail to even do that.

[saghm]

We already have bad guys doing X right now (literally, not the placeholders variable)

[curious_cat_163]

> It is fairly rare to see an ex-employee put a positive spin on their work experience.

I liked my jobs and bosses!

[tptacek]

Most posts of the form "Reflections on [Former Employer]" on HN are positive.

[TeMPOraL]

I agree with your points here, but I feel the need to address the final bit. This is not aimed personally at you, but at the pattern you described - specifically, at how it's all too often abused:

> Sure, some might object to X, but they miss the big picture: X is going to indirectly benefit the society because we're going to put the resulting money and power to good use. Without us, you could have the bad guys doing X instead!

Those are the easy cases, and correspondingly, you don't see much of those - or at least few are paying attention to companies talking like that. This is distinct from saying "X is going to directly benefit the society, and we're merely charging for it as fair compensation of our efforts, much like a baker charges you for the bread" or variants of it.

This is much closer to what most tech companies try to argue, and the distinction seems to escape a lot of otherwise seemingly sharp people. In threads like this, I surprisingly often end up defending tech companies against such strawmen - because come on, if we want positive change, then making up a simpler but baseless problem, calling it out, and declaring victory, isn't helping to improve anything (but it sure does drive engagement on-line, making advertisers happy; a big part of why press does this too on a routine basis).

And yes, this applies to this specific case of OpenAI as well. They're not claiming "LLMs are going to indirectly benefit the society because we're going to get rich off them, and then use that money to fund lots of nice things". They're just saying, "here, look at ChatGPT, we believe you'll find it useful, and we want to keep doing R&D in this direction, because we think it'll directly benefit society". They may be wrong about it, or they may even knowingly lie about those benefits - but this is not trickle-down economics v2.0, SaaS edition.

[vlovich123]

> That's true at almost every company that ends up making morally questionable decisions! There's no Bond villain at the helm. It's good people rationalizing things

I mean, that's a leap. There could be a bond villain that sets up incentives such that people who rationalize the way they want is who gets promoted / their voice amplified. Just because individual workers generally seem like they're trying to do the best thing doesn't mean the organization is set up specifically and intentionally to make certain kinds of "shady" decisions.

[energy123]

  > It's just a good reminder that the overwhelming majority of "why I left" posts are basically trying to justify why a person wasn't a good fit for an organization by blaming it squarely on the organization.

It's also a performance art to acquire attention