Update 11/30 at end of description
Employee departures must be reasonably reported as related to Sam’s firing by more than one reputable source and must occur before EOY 2023. This market will not resolve before then unless OpenAI ceases to exist as an independent company. We can have a discussion in the comments here about how to resolve if that happens.
“Departures” includes both voluntary resignations and firings by either the board or someone employed at the company.
OpenAI is currently estimated to have around 700 employees. At least 5 “left” today in connection to Sam’s firing (including Sam). That is why that’s the lower baseline here.
Feel free to post articles about employee departures in the comments; I may not be able to catch them all.
Planning to resolve this around January 7th, 2024 to allow for any late news about end of year departures to be credibly reported.
11/30: (Copied from comments below) Warning to “five” bettors: I am no longer likely to resolve to this option because Emmett Shear was a) a confirmed employee b) left the company officially as of yesterday and c) his departure was clearly related to Sam’s departure, given not only the objective temporal circumstances but his threats to leave unless the board could adequately explain why they fired Sam, which they failed to do (hence the pending investigation).
I don’t plan on resolving this until likely the end of the year, but if it stops appearing in the major media outlets for more than a week I may resolve earlier than that.
Given the subjectivity inherent in some of the did-they-or-didn’t-they nature of reporting on personnel, I will refrain from betting on this market for the remainder of the open period. I recommend all five bettors either reconsider their bets or make extremely compelling arguments as to why I shouldn’t consider Shear for my resolution. Thank you.
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Warning to “five” bettors: I am no longer likely to resolve to this option because Emmett Shear was a) a confirmed employee b) left the company officially as of yesterday and c) his departure was clearly related to Sam’s departure, given not only the objective temporal circumstances but his threats to leave unless the board could adequately explain why they fired Sam, which they failed to do (hence the pending investigation).
I don’t plan on resolving this until likely the end of the year, but if it stops appearing in the major media outlets for more than a week I may resolve earlier than that.
Given the subjectivity inherent in some of the did-they-or-didn’t-they nature of reporting on personnel, I will refrain from betting on this market for the remainder of the open period. I recommend all five bettors either reconsider their bets or make extremely compelling arguments as to why I shouldn’t consider Shear for my resolution. Thank you.
@Broseph New openai announcement! https://openai.com/blog/sam-altman-returns-as-ceo-openai-has-a-new-initial-board
@TheBayesian That’s a good source, but the key issue here is whether or not Ilya ends up staying with the company as his status is still in question according to the letter. As such, I’m not sure if this should be resolved before the end of the year—his near-term departure would be clearly linked to his role in the whole “kicking out Sam” fiasco.
In any case, it seems highly likely given that press release and other reports that this resolves to either “5” or “more than 5 but less than 10”. We just might need a bit more time to be sure of which.
@TheBayesian I asked earlier if temporary departures count and the answer @Broseph gave was yes.
I know of five departures: Altman, Brockman, and the three listed in this article: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/three-senior-openai-researchers-resign-as-crisis-deepens If there’s public information about anyone else having left even temporarily, the answer should not be 5.
@AnttiTarvainen I think based on the criteria in my description (re: the five who left on Friday) anyone who formally “resigns” for at least a full 24 hours before returning to work at OpenAI counts here.