Brockman is worth $30 billion. Molo has been asking, over and over, why Brockman hasn’t donated the $29 billion to OpenAI’s charity since he’d be good at $1 billion. Brockman has been making weird non-answers. He sounds nervous and not especially convincing.
The famous Brockman quote has finally hit. Molo is arguing that rather than figuring out funding for the nonprofit, Brockman was plotting to get rich. Brockman is trying to say that there’s more context. While Molo is getting worked up, Brockman is pretty level. “Do we accept Elon’s terms, or do we reject the terms, he quits to create his own [AI company], and then we create our own [AI company]?” Molo tried to strike the answer, but he is overruled.
Greg Brockman’s journal really is making Greg Brockman look unreliable. Six days after telling Musk that Brockman et al. wanted more results in the nonprofit and to fundraise there, he writes, “We’ve been thinking about that maybe we should just flip to a for-profit. making money for us sounds great and all.” Brockman says this was an expression of a frustration and not a plan. Molo asks if he rehearsed that. Brockman says “no.”
He also writes, “To convert to a b-corp without him. That’d be pretty morally bankrupt.” That’s probably the most solid thing the Musk team has gotten out during the trial so far.
Molo asks if the nonprofit should still be a philanthropic endeavor. Brockman says, forcefully, “no.” We then look at notes from his diary, where he records Musk as saying “gotta figure out how do we transition from non-profit or something which is essentially philanthropic endeavor and is b-corp or c-corp.” Does make Brockman look pretty shifty.
We are hearing a lot of “I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” “I’m not sure I’d say it that way,” and “This sounds like something that I wrote, is it okay if we see it in context?” It’s not as contentious or tense as Musk’s exchanges with Savitt, but it’s definitely notable.
The question is whether Brockman disclosed his ownership of Cerebras when OpenAI was discussing merging with it. Brockman told Teller and Zilis, who were in theory Musk’s chiefs of staff, but not Musk himself. Molo is driving this home, which… I am less convinced by. Lots of executives delegate.
Musk’s team is finally landing some serious blows — namely that part of Brockman’s compensation was a grant from Altman’s family office. Musk’s adviser Jared Birchall wrote, “Greg is going to have a greater allegiance toward Sam as a result of this arrangement.” Brockman told Musk that “We ran out of YC stock fulfilling others’ offers” so Altman arranged the deal.
Molo is saying it’s a “side deal” that Musk wasn’t informed about. Except the email chain plainly says Altman informed Birchall directly, who then emailed Musk. I imagine that will come on direct. Still, the financial conflict of interest is the most undermining information I’ve seen from Musk’s team so far.
At a dinner about AI that Brockman and Altman attended, Musk was late. The first thing Brockman remembers Musk asking is, “Is Demis Hassabis evil?” Hassabis, of course, ran DeepMind.
Good: Running PC copies of two specific games (Wukong, Crimson Desert) performance can meet or barely beat native PS5! Control at 1080p50-60 with checkerboard RT reflections instead of 1440p30!
Bad: Only Phat consoles with ancient firmware qualify; only 1080p; glitches and stutters; memory management issues seemingly caused severe issues in some games. Read more.
Colin Angle revealed his latest creation this week: a dog-sized robot ‘Familiar’ designed for human connection, not chores.
It was initially supposed to be part of Y Combinator, as a research arm. Looking at a solicitation email from Brockman to then-CEO of Yahoo Marissa Mayer, Brockman writes that donors include Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Reid Hoffman, and Peter Thiel. “I’m personally donating $100,000,” he writes. But he didn’t end up donating that. Brockman is speaking very quickly and very softly, and YGR has just scolded him for it.
