Altman was raising billions from Middle East sovereign funds for AI chip startup

  • This article appears to be their source: https://archive.ph/wQOhC

    > Alongside rifts over strategy, board members also contended with Altman’s entrepreneurial ambitions. Altman has been looking to raise tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to create an AI chip startup to compete with processors made by Nvidia Corp., according to a person with knowledge of the investment proposal. Altman was courting SoftBank Group Corp. chairman Masayoshi Son for a multibillion-dollar investment in a new company to make AI-oriented hardware in partnership with former Apple designer Jony Ive. Sutskever and his allies on the OpenAI board chafed at Altman’s efforts to raise funds off of OpenAI’s name, and they harbored concerns that the new businesses might not share the same governance model as OpenAI, the person said.

  • Hmm, is this why the press keep saying that microsoft was "blindsided" by the announcement? was it an attempt to cover this eventuality - because of conflict of interests? They also announced wanting to build their own AI chip lol

  • Hoarding tech and assets for his own ventures, expecting more to come from SAlty.

  • “Icarus ignored Daedalus’s instructions not to fly too close to the sun, causing the beeswax in his wings to melt. Icarus fell from the sky, plunged into the sea, and drowned.” Strikingly fit metaphor for Altman.

  • Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs will sell this country and our freedom for a dollar, ego, and power. It's already happened and is happening at increasing rates.

  • When you are ahead of the curve...OpenAI was only a job or a hop for him, to move on to his next venture...One day that was eventually going to happen, either under OpenAI if the board approved or if he only wanted the fruits of success for himself less the baggage.

  • I don't really get the sentiment in this thread. There is an enormous chip shortage and we are just about getting started with useful AI. The chips are not optional and his or rather OpenAIs current mission hinges on their availability.

    If Sama feels the current players are not doing enough, it seems entirely in line with his publicly stated and often repeated goal of advancing AI, that he would try and move things along. That's just extremely consequential execution.

  • He is not the only AI related entity doing business in the Middle East. Look at G42’s and King Abdullah University’s partnership with Cerebras Systems.

    I was not aware that the Arab states were such a Mecca (pun very much intended) for AI, but there must be something there… why pass over any number of American partnerships?

    Especially in today’s geopolitical climate.

  • I thought he invested in several AI chip companies. Which one is this about?

  • He helped make a new pie and decided to take a slice

  • Too many hands in too many cookie jars, this feels like.

  • 100% sure he was fired because he started some side hustle to get a bigger chunk of the ai cake. In a few we will have some launch of a new venture and a bunch of openai peeps will flip over to the new co.

  • I don’t understand why people with such amount of cash still looking for VC instead of bootstrapping their company.

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  • Well well how the turntables...