Y Combinator's Stake in OpenAI (0.6%)

(daringfireball.net)

186 points | by gyomu 4 hours ago

4 comments

  • rvz 42 minutes ago
    Greg Brockman (President of OpenAI) also said that OpenAI is around 80% close to achieving "AGI", but it was disclosed that his stake in OpenAI is worth around 30BN.

    So what does the true definition of "AGI" actually mean? It depends on who you ask.

    It appears to many to mean "A Great IPO" or "A Gigantic IPO" at this point rather than "Artificial General Intelligence" which has been clearly hijacked to mean something else.

    • wg0 30 minutes ago
      > So what does the true definition of "AGI" actually mean?

      If your stake is > 30 billion seems more of a reasonable and realistic criteria to me.

  • 8ig8 1 hour ago
    Seems to be an unusually quiet post for something posted 3 hours ago.
    • roxolotl 56 minutes ago
      My understanding is dang has said in the past they do some anti moderation(I’m sure he has a better term) for posts related to ycombinator. That is to say they moderate less and might, do not quote me here, even boost a tad. So upvoted story by a well reputed source even without many comments is likely to hang onto the front page for a bit.
      • dang 5 minutes ago
        You're thinking of the principle I've explained here over the years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... - i.e. that we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC-funded startup are part of the story.

        "Less" doesn't mean "not at all", of course—that would be too big a loophole. But it does mean strictly less, and we stick to that, despite its various downsides.

        In the present case, it means we haven't applied any moderation downweights to this post, even though it's obviously the sort of thing we would downweight under other circumstances, since it's neither particularly substantive nor intellectually interesting (though it could perhaps be some other kind of interesting, at least to some readers).

    • pdpi 21 minutes ago
      The actual content of the post is straightforward and not particularly novel — YC has a stake in OpenAI, that creates a conflict of interest, and the New Yorker is negligent (in the informal sense) for not putting that in their piece.

      It’s a sobering reminder and worthy of being on the front page on that basis alone, but I don’t see much of a discussion to be had. “Unusually quiet for a front page post” is probably where this post is meant to be.

      • gyomu 12 minutes ago
        > not particularly novel

        As far as I know this is the first time anyone has claimed to publicly know, quoting insider sources, what YC's actual stake in OpenAI is.

    • iambateman 1 hour ago
      Do you have something to say about it?
  • oliculipolicula 1 hour ago
    Despite not publicly moving away from what has been said about Sam*

    Jessica Livingston's personal stake in OpenAI is maybe at most 0.1% or less and Paul Graham's, afaik, is 0.

    So the bias doesn't seem as large as OP thinks

    *https://xcancel.com/paulg/status/2041366050693173393

    And "toughness, adaptability, and determination" >>> "ambition", frankly

    • chis 43 minutes ago
      Such suspicious phrasing lol. So you’re saying Paul Graham and his wife Jessica have 800 MILLION dollars worth of OpenAI stock, and that’s not so significant?
    • crowcroft 52 minutes ago
      What is 0.1% of a trillion? I think that's quite a large number still.
      • bitmasher9 48 minutes ago
        OpenAI’s last post-money valuation was less than a trillion. They’ll probably cross that point in the future, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
        • kibibu 41 minutes ago
          It was $852 billion - 0.1% of which is $852 million
    • kibibu 43 minutes ago
      Does Paul Graham no longer have a stake in Y Combinator?
  • wg0 26 minutes ago
    Nothing unusual. There's not an AI company (mostly AI wrappers) on planet in which Y Combinator hasn't sprinkled their cash already.

    I'd go as far to say that it's impossible at this point to form an AI company without YCombinator not investing in it.