Can someone explain to me why California would believe Sam Altman plans to stay in California? This is a weak handshake agreement that could easily be flipped post IPO. The very flip from non-profit to IPO shows he will do what it takes for OpenAI to "succeed", so why would the geographical location be any more permanent than corporate structure. This isnt a diss to Sam either, it just shows he is motivated by whatever is best for the entity at any given time.
They might stay in California, but that probably has far more to do with available researchers and employee preferences than some agreement with the Attorney General.
In any negotiation, you need to understand what leverage either side has. In this case, CA could block the conversion, and OpenAI could leave California. Both are possible but extremely unlikely outcomes! So the whole point is to take these unlikely outcomes to the table, negotiate in good faith, and come out with an agreement.
So California needs to believe that OpenAI will stay in California just as much as OpenAI needs to believe that CA won't block the conversion (or impose other onerous regulations around AI). So yes, it's possible to speculate about whether or not people are sincere in their motivations, but when you need to make a deal, there needs to be a measure of good faith and trust on both sides in order to make something happen.
And in this case, both sides are incentivized to make the deal. OpenAI wants to be a PBC in order to access more capital, and California wants OpenAI to be a PBC so that it can IPO so that all employees (all of whom are likely CA residents), will sell stock, which can then be taxed as CA income.
California is home to 1 in 8 Americans, and likely a much higher fraction of AI researchers, users and partner organizations to OpenAI (like Nvidia). The California AG has plenty of leverage beyond blocking/reversing the conversion. What leverage will OpenAI have after "leaving"[1] the California?
1. They're guaranteed to have an engineering office in the SF Bay. Not many of those folk will agree to relocate to Texas/Miami.
Yup the Tesla treatment. Can change HQ's all you want but the main engineering work, brains, and talent will be at a HQ in California no matter what. Sam will probably do this for brownie points with the current administration, it will be politicized news for a cycle, but after the dust settles the majority of non-admin people will still be working unchanged out of CA.
That’s assuming Altman is sincerely going to keep trying to develop “AGI” and not try to turn OpenAI into a profitable business. You don’t need AI researchers if you get good enough video generation and pornbots to become immortally wealthy and say fuck the rest. If this is the case, OpenAI could be a completely done product, all that’s left to do is stop spending so much money on SG&A and get those revenue streams cranking.
What's stopping OpenAI from offering telework? AI isn't dealing with high security or particularly sensitive data (that developers need to actively access - training data is all public or stolen works) and it's not a hardware product.
Unless you're Universal and Marvel, leaving Disney unable to buy out Universal's contract with Marvel, and unable to use classic comic book characters because the parks too close to Universals. Still cracks me up.
Not if the big holders aren't residents, they can move away just before like Rogan with his Spotify deal, or Jonathan Blow just before a game release after developing in California and going to public college there, etc.
Since it's a non-profit still holding it any gains to the non-profit entity upon the conversion don't go to California, and principal stakeholders can move away. Other funds raised from the IPO can be invested in other states untaxed (long term datacenter leases instead of booking the capital of building one) until they move the company away I think.
There will probably be a lot of smaller stakeholders that stay with a lot of money for the state, and California at least doesn't do the $15 million QSBS so they may get a lot from that tail of employees. A large portion of this tail of lower compensated employees may get laid off due to AI replacement before IPO and lose a lot of unvested years, if we are to believe OpenAI's own claims about timelines for job replacement in that field at lower levels.
I'd recommend anyone expecting to profit from OpenAI stock and aiming to avoid California taxes to look into the subject in depth with paid advisors. The California FTB is not stupid or naïve and has a history of successfully getting paid for stock that vested with a California nexus, even if the beneficiary moves out of state. Good luck!
You're right, it's harder with vesting stock compensation than other things you build up over time like an audience or a developing a game over a long span.
> Can someone explain to me why California would believe Sam Altman plans to stay in California?
The simple answer is unless developing LLMs becomes commoditised, the best place in the world to do it is in San Francisco. You don't take your manufacturing business out of Shenzhen without very good reason.
Seems a little easier than that, though, because there are no supply chains involved (other than for the data centers, but those are already not in SF). Why else would the CA government be worried?
There's books written about the Bay Area and the factors that make (or made) it uniquely suited for developing new technologies. There's even college courses about it. Some of it's surely provincial fluff, but it's undeniable that California has been an essential incubator for a whole series of world-changing, fortune-making technologies.
I don't want to downplay the network effects here, but it's in CA entirely by coincidence. SV is in CA because William Shockley's family is there, which is why he founded Shockley Semiconductor there. It could have been somewhere else. The 2nd largest tech hub is in Seattle. It's there because that's were Bill Gates is from. Is SF the best place to start a startup if you want in office talent in 2025. 100% yes, but that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history.
> that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history
I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant. The fact that it exists now is what gives it staying power. One of the surest bets I’ve seen in seed and Series A investing is when a market has one or two competitors in a cluster and the rest outside. The insiders win. Always. It’s the easiest bulldozing strategy that exists.
> It's on you to prove the parent wrong and you provided nothing to explain why the Bay Area is special beyond history/staying power
I’m literally saying it’s irrelevant due to incumbency effects. If someone is doing something AI outside the Bay Area, a decent business is to copy and outraise them.
> I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant. The fact that it exists now is what gives it staying power.
You said OP was wrong to say "that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history" but that it's irrelevant anyway because the area has incumbency effects. Those are 2 separate things, something that you claim to be wrong but irrelevant, and something you say is true.
I agree with the second point, incumbency is a heavy weight to dislodge. But why would OP be wrong to say there's nothing intrinsic to the place that give it power?
I think OP is completely correct, the Bay Area as a place itself isn't special, it's those historical accidental decisions that now make it a hard to dislodge incumbent. But this detail is very important because if "the place" doesn't have some intrinsic power, like some unique natural resource, geography, climate, etc. that just can't be replicated elsewhere, then it can be replicated elsewhere.
In fewer words, "the place" having something unique means immovability. Incumbency just means inertia. Inertia isn't what it use to be. Detroit was the place for building cars just a few decades ago. One accidental decision, one bad policy can send an incumbent on a slow roll down. The Bay Area itself has nothing that reasonably can't be replicated elsewhere, unlike for example an oil field which you have or you don't.
Municipalities trying to make their own Silicon... Alley, Beach, Hills, Slopes, Forest, Prairie, Bayou, Desert, Roundabout, Docks, Glen, Fen, Cape, Oasis, (and more!) with varying degrees of success, so I don't know that it is unreasonably replicatible. Despite all those efforts, OpenAI and Anthropic both are heavy hitters in the AI industry, and they are both headquartered in San Francisco.
Naturally, nothing lasts forever. Not Silicon Valley, not the USA, not the Holy Roman Empire. Some things do last quite a while though. If we look all the way back to Hewett-Packard, though now a shadow of its former self, it was established in 1939.
Exactly. No one is arguing the historical & material reasons as to why Bay Area is the birthing place of many technological revolutions. The Bay Area is special because of said history/staying power - which has systemic downstream advantages that cannot be replicated. 60% of total VC funding is in the Bay Area alone. Being surrounded by Stanford, Berkeley, etc gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers. Theres just no other region like it and won't be for a very long time.
> No one is arguing the historical & material reasons as to why Bay Area is the birthing place of many technological revolutions.
You're kinda missing the bigger picture - the fact that Bay Area was not always a tech hub, and became one at some point for various reason - which can happen in any other place (and has).
> which has systemic downstream advantages that cannot be replicated.
Seems like a very baseless and meaningless statement.
> Being surrounded by Stanford, Berkeley, etc gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers.
Except for the fact that the vast majority pf Bay Area tech talent does not come from Stanford or Berkeley, and is being outsourced at ever increasing rates.
> Theres just no other region like it and won't be for a very long time.
Yeah except for it has always been a tech hub because the term "tech hub" didn't exist before the Bay Area? I mean the first message sent over the precursor to the internet was from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute in 1969, and the SF Bay Area having some of the first infrastructure for high-speed internet was a key factor into its position as the tech hub. Mind you this is all preceded by Hewlett Packard 30 years earlier setting the stage for the semiconductor revolution, and even this is preceded by 100 years with Leland Stanford. To much to talk about here as to why there is a unique mix of private capital, industry/government collusion, university research and development, and more that are entrenched in the region.
The makeup of tech companies employees doesn't remotely tell the full story of the advantages of the UC system, Stanford, and other universities in CA through research that feed into SV as the leading tech hub that cannot be replicated (See example of the invention of the internet above). I mean hell, 4 UC alum won nobel prizes this year alone, one of which was the chief scientist at Google's quantum AI.
But yeah sure, if we're talking in the context of "anything is possible" then yeah I concede, it can happen anywhere. Kind of a boring insight. The point is that no - it hasn't happened anywhere else to the extent of the bay area despite cities trying to for the past 30 years- and it won't happen for a very long time because of the converging mechanisms that took place over the past 100 years.
Places where technological innovation and development happen have existed long before the internet and semiconductors. The industrial revolution didn't originate or center around the Bay Area.
> The makeup of tech companies employees doesn't remotely tell the full story...
What? You made the argument that Bay Area has some kind of special access to tech talent because of Stanford - I simply pointed out that the vast majority of Bay Area tech employees are not from Stanford (not to mention many Stanford alums leave California).
> UC system, Stanford, and other universities in CA through research that feed into SV as the leading tech hub that cannot be replicated
> Places where technological innovation and development happen have existed long before the internet and semiconductors. The industrial revolution didn't originate or center around the Bay Area.
You said tech hub. By all definitions of the term the Bay Area was the first. Nor did I say the industrial revolution originated around the Bay Area?
> What? You made the argument that Bay Area has some kind of special access to tech talent because of Stanford - I simply pointed out that the vast majority of Bay Area tech employees are not from Stanford (not to mention many Stanford alums leave California).
You tend to do this a lot. "Many Stanford alums leave California" and "talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates". Just vague generalizations that offer nothing to the overall conversation.
I made the argument that being close to these universities gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers and researchers. This is true whether or not they work for Bay Area tech companies you understand this right? Regardless, out of the reported feeder schools into tech 5 out of the top 10 are California universities.
You just named universities from 5 different states/regions? Please keep up.
> And several google/deepmind employees from/educated in UK won a nobel prize in 2024... what's your point?
They weren't from the same school? The UC system altogether has over 150 nobel prizes and thats before including private institutions like Stanford, Caltech, USC, and others. Thus exemplifying the unique system dedicated to research and technology consolidated in one region..
> It was more true (but still very boring) 10 years ago, not anymore.
Going to be honest man from interacting with you it seems like you have a chip on your shoulder about the bay. I don't even live there I live in LA. It shouldn't bug you to point out the objective fact that the unique confluence of geographic location, surrounding education system and research institutions, compounded wealth from prior historical industrial/technological windfalls, makes SV the premiere tech hub that is consistently on the forefront of burgeoning technologies - not by accident.
Are you also confused as to why NYC is the finance capital of the world? Do you think Toronto could usurp it one day if they just try hard enough?
No, you said tech hub. Which is short of 'technology hub', which is not just limited to mobile apps.
> You tend to do this a lot. "Many Stanford alums leave California" and "talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates". Just vague generalizations that offer nothing to the overall conversation.
Those aren't generalizations, those are very specific statements, which go directly against your vague generalizations ('oh but there are good universities in the area for tech talent therefore its impossible to replicate'), and which you apparently can't disagree with because they are obviously true.
> I made the argument that being close to these universities gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers and researchers.
Nope, what you said is that because these universities are located in that area - no other region could possibly compete. And I gave you very specific examples of why that's not true.
> You just named universities from 5 different states/regions? Please keep up.
Yeah.. some of the leading universities for tech talent in the world... which are not in California... (which according to you is impossible)... please keep up.
> makes SV the premiere tech hub that is consistently on the forefront of burgeoning technologies
I never said SV is not a major tech hub. I actually said the opposite. What I disagreed with is your baseless assertion that no other region could possibly compete, or that tech companies have to be in SV to succeeded (which is obviously false, and which I see you shifting the goalposts on now)
> Are you also confused as to why NYC is the finance capital of the world?
Maybe you should rewind to back when NYC wasn't a major finance hub, then apply your same reasoning - 'NYC couldn't possibly become a finance hub, because London is the finance hub'.
Your arguments are self-contradictory and not logical.
> "You're kinda missing the bigger picture - the fact that Bay Area was not always a tech hub, and became one at some point for various reason - which can happen in any other place (and has)."
Lol are we children now? No, YOU literally said tech hub.
> Those aren't generalizations, those are very specific statements, which go directly against your vague generalizations ('oh but there are good universities in the area for tech talent therefore its impossible to replicate'), and which you apparently can't disagree with because they are obviously true.
No, they are generalizations. I have given you myriad examples as to why the UC system and its integration with research and development is unique and doesn't exist anywhere else in the US let alone can be replicated. "Many Stanford alums leave California" means nothing to the overall point (despite 70% staying in CA). Yes, some people from one university leave California leave? Yes? And? "Talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates". Yes, and? Talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates everywhere in the US. Outsourcing talent has going on for a long time. Again, means nothing to the overall point.
> Nope, what you said is that because these universities are located in that area - no other region could possibly compete. And I gave you very specific examples of why that's not true.
You did not? You named universities from 5 different states and/or regions. I am actually beginning to be concerned. You understand the difference between what I'm saying right? The 5 schools you named have been around forever.. They haven't replicated what the UC system and surrounding schools have create in the Bay Area. So your examples are stupid?
I didn't even say leading universities in tech can't exist outside of California? What are you even saying anymore?
> What I disagreed with is your baseless assertion that no other region could possibly compete, or that tech companies have to be in SV to succeeded (which is obviously false, and which I see you shifting the goalposts on now)
No other region right now is competing - or can compete. I conceded to your overall vibes-based opinion that "anything can happen" and that yes, in a miraculous set of circumstances held over 50+ years that some region could usurp the Bay Area with tech. I then continued with historical and contemporary examples as to why that won't happen anytime soon.
> Maybe you should rewind to back when NYC wasn't a major finance hub, then apply your same reasoning - 'NYC couldn't possibly become a finance hub, because London is the finance hub'.
Please reference my last response. Yes, New York became a major financial capital (and competitor to London) after 150 years of massive historical circumstances (WW1, Bretton Woods, etc). Perhaps this could happen to the Bay Area in tech, sure - but these aren't happening separately in a vacuum. Whilst the title of financial capital of the world traded hands between London, NYC, and even Tokyo in the 80's, one thing stayed constant, and that is the tech industry remained in SV.
There is no NYC in the 20's equivalent to the Bay Area's London in this equation.
> Your arguments are self-contradictory and not logical.
They are not. Here is my argument in a nutshell: Silicon Valley became - and remains - the global tech hub thanks to a unique mix of top-tier universities like Stanford and the surrounding UC system, early government investment in semiconductors, a deep venture capital ecosystem, and a culture of innovation and risk-taking. Other regions domestically and internationally, have struggled to catch up because they lack the decades of compounding infrastructure, talent networks, and startup experience that can’t be quickly replicated.
Yes and I explained with walls of text of historical, geographical, socioeconomic examples how that is true and your disagreement boils down to "but anything can happen", which is boring in a discussion, so its pointless to continue. Yeah and Des Moines could become the global finance capital of the world, there is nothing you can say to allude otherwise because we don't know what could happen in 500 years.
It goes back way way further than that. The special mix of government funded technology, ruthless entrepreneurship, and social engineering predates Shockley by almost 100 years.
Start by figuring out who Leland Stanford is and how he got rich. Read the book ‘Palo Alto’ if you’re looking for a good starting point.
Yeah it’s quite bold to suggest that Shockley would have done the same thing outside the environment of the Bay Area rather than that someone other than Shockley would have done what he did in California if he wasn’t there or that even if he did it outside California that people inside California still industrialize it. It’s a very individualistic view of progress which is uniquely American and unlikely to capture how stuff happens given that multiple discoveries often happen simultaneously by people working on the problem (eg calculus and Newton vs Leibniz).
The truth is the Bay Area has structural reasons why SV happened and why the same thing has failed to replicate to any significant degree outside the Bay Area.
Not entirely by coincidence. Yes Shockley was from CA, but as late as the 1980, two places were competing to be the center: Boston's Route 128 ("America's Technology Highway") or Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley won out because the CA constitution explicitly prohibits non-competes (which MA allows), leading to more rapid innovation. Very likely the infamous Traitorous Eight who left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild could not have done that if noncompetes could be enforced.
Non-competes are one aspect, absolutely. However that's can't be the whole story because that applies to all of California and it's a decently sized state, with a lot of other areas. Any part of the southern California basin, San Diego, and Sacramento. If we include smaller areas (because silicon valley was once just apple orchards, that list gets longer.
except developing AI is very much a knowledge exercise with very little dependency on location.
You don't move your manufacturing business out of Shenzhen because the entire hard supply chain from mining, refining, manufacturing, test, ship and trade are all there. You can't move a refinery that easily much less the entire supply chain.
Well paid engineers congregate in CA because that's where the companies that hire well paid engineers congregate, and they (mostly) want those well paid engineers to come to the office every couple of days. I don't know how you could get the causality so completely backwards on this.
Anecdotal evidence: I moved to CA twice as an engineer.
Once to get my masters after college. Stayed for 13 years. Left during COVID.
Second time to raise kids.
Our reasons include weather, intellectual atmosphere, safety (in many regards), schools, and job opportunities.
The geo area sandwiched between Berkeley and Stanford is only rivaled by Boston. You think Stanford and Berkeley are in the Bay because they’re told to?
And I would also question: what’s the point of living in US if you’re not in California? Once you decide to not live in CA, a bunch of other countries rank better than other US states. Such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
If I were to not live in CA, even the imperial units would quickly become annoying.
I think you're wrong. The concentration is for a host of reasons. Witness the large number of cities and countries that have tried to create a local Silicon Valley competitor unsuccessfully over the last 25 years.
The data centers I think prove this point, and disprove yours -- huge spend has gone into data centers, but places like Wenatchee remain stubbornly not Silicon Valley.
Intel has not made Portland into SV. Austin, while a tech hub and one of the US supply chain centers for hardware, is multiple orders of magnitude less productive than SV for tech startups. Productive as in numbers of unicorns, total value creation, however you want to spin it.
The Texas Stock Exchange launches next year and I predict we will see a lot of tech try to move to launch there given txse claim to have lower compliance and less esg needs.
The TXSE was launched by an energy magnate [1] and "is financed by institutional investors including Charles Schwab, Fortress, BlackRock, and Citadel Securities" [2]. It's a direct response to the NASDAQ and NYSE putting their feet down on carbon emissions.
Nothing about its structure requires a company be incorporated in Texas much less based there [3]--those restrictions would go against the reason it was founded.
I doubt it. The state where a company is incorporated or has its headquarters located doesn't impact where it can list shares. There are several foreign companies with no significant US operations which are listed on US stock markets just to gain access to capital.
You know that Nasdaq isn't in Silicon Valley right? Lots of companies are based in the valley, listed in either CA or Delaware and go on to list in NYC now. There's no compelling reason for them to move to Texas.
As for the compliance thing it remains to be seen, but generally companies in low-compliance jurisdictions trade at a "fraud discount" to compensate investors for the likelihood of untoward shenanigans that would be prevented by that compliance.
Stock exchange aside, being able to build buildings without getting held of years or even decades for an endangered tree frog, and also employees being able to afford housing are kind of important to companies. Texas has its downsides, for sure, but it would be silly to pretend there aren't other reasons for companies to move there that have nothing to do with the new stock exchange.
downvoted -- this is a low quality comment, and worse, it's uninformed. Texas may be lower reg than NASDAQ at launch, and it may compete for business that way, and consumers may or may not like this and may or may not benefit from it.
However, post Sarbox US is vastly more regulated than the markets that "built" Silicon Valley, and there are many costs to corporations, founders and employees of that heavier regulation -- including a radically less friendly public capital market for companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
> doesn't explain the value of Sam Altman's pinky promise
The MOU [1] requires OpenAI "provide at least 21 days’ prior written notice to the Attorney General before consenting to: (a) a change of control of the PBC; (b) any change to the PBC mission as set out in the PBC Delaware charter; (c) any amendment to the PBC Delaware charter that would remove the NFP’s sole right, as holder of the Class N shares, to appoint PBC directors or otherwise reduces in any material respect the rights of the Class N shares; or (d) the relocation of the headquarters of the NFP or PBC outside of California" [1].
The meat appears to be in the agreements by OpenAI to not change its ownership and control structure. California's real leverage would be in re-opening this dispute, though ¶ 22 seems to water down that power somewhat. (Maybe go after the donors?)
> location you're physically sitting in doesn't really matter
Of course it does.
The benefits of proximity to business clusters [1] is well researched [2]. There is no evidence remote work has dampened that tendency; if anything, as evidenced by AI, the effect seems to have increased.
You're linking to pre-covid studies, that mention some types of benefits (for specific reasons like logistics benefits for businesses relying on physical materials/goos, or physical access to people for the purposes of networking), for some kinds of industries, and also mention that these benefits are not seen for some industries.
> Sometimes cluster strategies still do not produce enough of a positive impact to be justified in certain industries.
Let's take a step back and look at the fundamentals of a tech company who's employees are remote - what are the specific benefits of having a San Francisco office?
I'm linking to studies summarising a century of work. There is no evidence Covid changed this.
Exhibit A for Covid having not changed this is the continuing supremacy of Silicon Valley (tech), Shenzhen (manufacturing) and New York (finance) as industrial clusters that others have tried to replicate (everyone, America and Miami, respectively) and failed.
> Let's take a step back and look at the fundamentals of a tech company who's employees are remote - what are the specific benefits of having a San Francisco office?
Proximity to investors. Proximity to customers. Proximity to a skilled employee pool. Proxomity to acquirers. (A lot of deals happen at cocktail parties and ski trips.)
By the way, I'm not arguing anyone needs an office. Just people physically and and proximate to the cluster.
> Exhibit A for Covid having not changed this is the continuing supremacy of Silicon Valley (tech)
You mean like when China built chatgpt 4 in a weekend and open-sourced it for giggles?
> Shenzhen (manufacturing)
..or you mean how US manufacturing 'clusters' almost completely disappeared/replaced by Chinese ones?
> Proximity to investors. Proximity to customers. Proximity to a skilled employee pool. Proxomity to acquirers.
Right, cause you have to physically pet every investor on the head to fundraise, your remote employees must be in san fran cause network latency interferes with their windows remote desktop workflow, and, for some reason, you have to be physically close to your customers when you're selling your web-only llm wrapper saas.
> You mean like when China built chatgpt 4 in a weekend and open-sourced it for giggles?
DeepSeek R1 is an amazing feat. It's not at the same level as other large frontier models from American companies, just close enough to make them sweat.
> ..or you mean how US manufacturing 'clusters' almost completely disappeared/replaced by Chinese ones?
The value of goods manufactured in the US has never been higher. US manufacturing focuses on goods at the top of the value chain: jetliners, cars, semiconductors, medical scanners, and other advanced electronics. These tend to cluster in a few places - for example, Long Beach is a hub of space and avionics manufacturing, Texas has the "Silicon Prarie," and Boeing in Everett is one of the major employers in the region. Manufacturing has disappeared as a share of GDP, but that's not because we make less stuff.
> Right, cause you have to physically pet every investor on the head to fundraise, your remote employees must be in san fran cause network latency interferes with their windows remote desktop workflow, and, for some reason, you have to be physically close to your customers when you're selling your web-only llm wrapper saas.
You sound sarcastic, but YES. You do generally have to physically be present to make deals. It is obviously theoretically possible to run a world-leading software company fully remote. Despite that, most of them are in-person at least a few days a week. If you want to take advantage of SV's easy VC money, you absolutely have to be present.
Companies are not purely about the numbers. A lot of business is imprecise and heavily dependent on things like just plain LIKING the people you're in bed with, and unfortunately there is no substitute for being in the same room as someone to make a decision like that.
> Manufacturing has disappeared as a share of GDP, but that's not because we make less stuff.
We assemble. The actual parts are largely made overseas.
Because location matters, assemblers in China are able to do better work at a much lower price, see every Chinese EV company, or Chinese drone companies.
Heck in China you can buy a competent Chinese EV motorscooter for less than a kids bicycle in America.
> It's not at the same level as other large frontier models from American companies
Cool story
> The value of goods manufactured in the US has never been higher... Manufacturing has disappeared as a share of GDP, but that's not because we make less stuff.
You're seriously going to try to argue how US manufacturing (which was the greatest share of global manufacturing by far) didn't decline, to support a point about how China (Shenzhen) is apparently an unreplicable manufacturing hub due to 'cluster effect'? It's funny that you don't see the contradiction. For the record, US manufacturing as a share of global manufacturing has significantly declined over the years. [0][1]
"
> The United States' share of global manufacturing activity declined from 28% in 2002, following the end of the 2001 U.S. recession, to 16.5% in 2011
> China displaced the United States as the largest manufacturing country in 2010
> Manufacturing output, measured in each country's local currency adjusted for inflation, has been growing more slowly in the United States than in China, South Korea, Germany, and Mexico
"
> You do generally have to physically be present to make deals.
If you need to be physically present for a meeting, you make a trip. There is absolutely zero benefit to living in close proximity to investors the rest of the time.
> It is obviously theoretically possible to run a world-leading software company fully remote.
It is obviously not just theoretically possible, and many companies do so.
I am not going to link you benchmarks or revenue numbers. You can find those yourself, if you actually care about being right.
> It's funny that you don't see the contradiction. For the record, US manufacturing as a share of global manufacturing has significantly declined over the years. [0][1]
Yes, because China is _cheap_ and _dense_ and has a billion newly-minted middle-class members. Do you expect them to import everything from the US and just ignore the vast labor pool within a few metro stops of any given factory?
> to support a point about how China (Shenzhen) is apparently an unreplicable manufacturing hub due to 'cluster effect'?
The Pearl River Delta, which Shenzen is part of, has almost 90 million people and a world-class transit system. It's across the water from Hong Kong, a global financial center, and is bordered by factory-filled cities on the other side.
Yes, that makes it nearly impossible for other places to become Shenzen. Even within China it's special.
> If you need to be physically present for a meeting, you make a trip. There is absolutely zero benefit to living in close proximity to investors the rest of the time.
Right, because if you're doing business you can get by with a single investor meeting a year, right? There's no downside in time lost, money spent, ease of access, etc.? You think there's no benefit to, say, playing tennis on weekends with your buddy from college who now works at a VC?
> You're seriously going to try to argue how US manufacturing (which was the greatest share of global manufacturing by far) didn't decline
Why the hell does it matter what percentage of global manufacturing is done in the US? You cannot ask the average American (one of the wealthiest people in the world) to work in a sweatshop making T-shirts. You cannot ask the average American to work for minimum wage tightening screws in iPhones.
You can, as it turns out, ask them to work a robotic assembly line to build a car or weld on a jetliner - because you can pay them much more, and because there are enough of them in an area to run a factory. Aggregation benefits are even more important for manufacturing than they are for software.
> Yes, that makes it nearly impossible for other places to become Shenzen. Even within China it's special.
You're skipping n = 1 and jumping straight to k. How did modern Shenzen become what it is? Through specific reasons like infrastructure investment, or because it was always a 'manufacturing cluster'? By your logic Shenzen must have been the manufacturing hub of the world since before the dawn of time... since it's 'impossible for any place to become Shenzen'.
> Right, because if you're doing business you can get by with a single investor meeting a year, right?
Because the only way to meet and communicate in 2025 is in person?
> There's no downside in time lost, money spent, ease of access, etc.?
All of these are better remote/digitally in most cases.
> You're skipping n = 1 and jumping straight to k. How did modern Shenzen become what it is? Through specific reasons like infrastructure investment, or because it was always a 'manufacturing cluster'? By your logic Shenzen must have been the manufacturing hub of the world since before the dawn of time... since it's 'impossible for any place to become Shenzen'.
Sure, any region in a rapidly developing and very dense country, with a large preexisting financial hub nearby, 50 years ago, could have become Shenzen. There was only one of those, and consequently there is only one Shenzen. How far back do you want me to go? Should I discuss the agglomeration effects enjoyed by the Han Dynasty?
> Because the only way to meet and communicate in 2025 is in person?
Why don't you try using that logic on someone you're convincing to give you a large sum of money and report back? The real world does not work this way, and that is why there is still only one Silicon Valley. I've made this point several times now and can point to the status quo to back it up.
> All of these are better remote/digitally in most cases.
I work partially remote. I intentionally schedule my meetings in person because I find that to be significantly better than a video call. I am definitely not alone, and for startups it is even more advantageous to physically be in the same room as the entire rest of the company.
> There was only one of those, and consequently there is only one Shenzen.
Really? There was only one rapidly developing, densely populated region with a financial hub nearby (why does the proximity of finance even matter?), in the entire world in the last 50 years (why 50 years)? Are you sure about that? (you are 100% wrong)
> I intentionally schedule my meetings in person because I find that to be significantly better than a video call.
Sounds like a you problem. Also the fact that you are 'partially remote' and you still schedule your meetings to be in person tells me: a) you do not have very many meetings b) you work with a fairly narrow scope of people who you can physically get into the same room on a regular basis.
I meet with founders, investors, tech leaders, and many various stakeholders on a regular basis. It would be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to have these meetings in person.
> for startups it is even more advantageous to physically be in the same room as the entire rest of the company.
If you say so, but the record number of fully remote startups that keep popping up at ever increasing rates says the opposite.
> Why don't you try using that logic on someone you're convincing to give you a large sum of money and report back?
Been there done that. If you need to meet in person to make final agreements/sign you can travel. Vast majority of communications/negotiations around fundraising and related happens digitally today.
> There was only one rapidly developing, densely populated region with a financial hub nearby (why does the proximity of finance even matter?
Because if you want to build factories you need capital. This is not rocket science. Much easier to get a loan when there are a billion bankers across the bridge.
Yes, there was only one place with all the ingredients to become Shenzen. Believe it or not, global financial centers are not commonly found in developing countries. Why don't you propose some alternatives, I'll wait.
> Sounds like a you problem. Also the fact that you are 'partially remote' and you still schedule your meetings to be in person tells me: a) you do not have very many meetings b) you work with a fairly narrow scope of people who you can physically get into the same room on a regular basis.
I have plenty of meetings, and I don't know what you're smoking if you think that more than a large conference room's worth of people could all participate in a meeting. Neither of these disqualifies what I'm saying.
> If you say so, but the record number of fully remote startups that keep popping up at ever increasing rates says the opposite.
And how many of these are becoming wildly successful, compared to in-person companies located in desirable cities?
> Vast majority of communications/negotiations around fundraising and related happens digitally today.
[citation needed]
Also it doesn't count if the numbers get worked out over email but the handshake was in person.
This is the opposite of true. It's actively wrong. Location is almost everything; people move to financial and tech centers for a reason -- it matters where you are and who you know.
> where you are and who you know are very different things
Different but related. Getting a purposeful introduction involves a lot more friction than being invited to someone's home for dinner with their colleagues and contacts.
This is so funny to imply that you (living in East Jesus, Texas) have a better or similar opportunity to me (living in SF) in making more relationships and connections to AI related companies, engineers, investors, customers, acquirers, scientists, etc.
I live a lot further from SF than Texas, yet I've been working fully remote for SF tech companies (among others) for 10+ years.
If I need to meet someone in person, I make a trip (~few times a year)
It's true that I can't brownnose/service random tech talking heads in person on a daily basis tho, which is what I assume you mean by 'relationships and connections' lmao
Okay so what you're doing is contradicting the objective advantages/benefits of living near the epicenter of a specific industry with a purely anecdotal example of 10+ years experience in jobs from said epicenter, with the expendable income to travel (domestic/international) for in-person meetings, then defining networking to a disingenuously generalization because it reinforces your opinion.
What if I were to tell you that you can make meaningful relationships and connections w/o "brown nosing/servicing" and its easier to do so in the center of a specific industry?
I'm giving you a specific example of why it's not necessary to be in any particular location to work in tech, or network, collaborate, communicate with other tech people.
Directly contradicting your baseless assertion about how you have to be in SF for those reasons.
Literally a specific, physical example and you're talking about 'defining networking to a disingenuously generalization' ...
I truly don't know what to even say. It is futile to relitigate the uncontested reality that there are a wide array of significant advantages to living near cultural, technological, and economic centers that are adjacent to your profession. You live alone in this area where this isn't obvious. I'd even posit you would be more successful than you already are if you lived closer.
> Can someone explain to me why California would believe Sam Altman plans to stay in California? This is a weak handshake agreement that could easily be flipped post IPO.
It is not a “handshake agreement”, but binding written agreement with terms constraining the governance of the restructure OpenAI entities.
If they're still based in CA when they IPO at least those initial taxes will be collectible in state (assuming they're structured in a way where the IPO is a taxable event for the leadership and staff). Pretty sure the taxes collected from OpenAI will be the single biggest IPO tax windfall ever (correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of a bigger one).
It's capital gains, which aren't taxed until the capital (IPO stock) is liquidated. I'm sure some people will liquidate their stock promptly but I expect that most will hold it, expecting further growth, and that the big investors, including Altman, will hold onto it for because of the same reason, because they need to sell optimism (what would people think if Altman or Microsoft sold a significant chunk of stock?), and because OpenAI needs lots of assets to build datacenters and buy power.
stocks sold by the company in an IPO aren’t taxable income. Pre-IPO stocks that people liquidate because there is now a liquid market and they want to realize some gains will generate some, but I don’t know how you’d predict the magnitude of that.
Perhaps it’s not so much that they believe he’ll stay in California long term if he gets what he wants; more that they do believe he’ll leave in the short term if he doesn’t.
Can someone explain to me how staying in CA has anything whatsoever to do with whether or not they IPO? Because it seems like it should have absolutely nothing to do with it. (Linked article is a paywall, so I can't read it.)
OpenAI needs to IPO because they want to access the public capital markets to fund their AI investments, more deep-pocketed investors are wary of investing in a LLC, and for liquidity, etc.
OpenAI needs to convert to a C-corp in order to IPO.
OpenAI needs the CA Attorney General's approval to convert a LLC into a C-Corp because the LLCs is headquartered in CA and incorporated with many CA laws.
So the article is making the point that OpenAI likely got the CA Attorney General's approval for the conversion because they promised to stay in CA (whether or not that's actually true).
(or support journalism and pay to read the article)
> This isnt a diss to Sam either, it just shows he is motivated by whatever is best for the entity at any given time.
This is the kind of weird rationalist (?) thing that people say a lot these days to justify bad behaviors: in this case Sam Altman behaves like a pathological liar.
In the US, one has to remember that megacorps usually end up winning, as people mostly only care about money and blindly supporting corporations is seen as pro-economy. There are also no limits on political financial contributions, and people have really short attention spans.
Politicians taking the superficial short-term win, as they will end up giving in to the megacorp anyway, is not surprising to me.
I have absolutely no idea why pivot tables would die before spreadsheet software. If people are using spreadsheet software, of course pivot tables will be useful. So to put my stack overflow hat on, it's asking the wrong question. Its entirely a matter of whether or not spreadsheet software has a place.
What indicators make you so certain? Certainly the em-dashes in the third sentence raised my eyebrow, as they always do now (it's sad—I loved a good em-dash).
I'd give my left nut to buy into OpenAI at this valuation. 300B is peanuts compared to where it would trade publicly, FCF and net income be damned. The growth and the optionality are there when you bring a tool this valuable to the world. This is destined to trade over 2T rapidly imo. PLTR (granted imo a bubble) trades above that, and PLTR is basically a glorified IBM/Accenture business model with mediocre growth.
But the point is you aren't a winner if you are unlocking social media. You are opening the gate to loserdom. I'm not sure how the I'm a winner concept would apply here using one of the four methods of operant conditioning.
The research stands, but the practical application of his app is based on a Positive Punishment operant conditioning.
> you aren't a winner if you are unlocking social media. You are opening the gate to loserdom
That is not a psychologically healthy way to frame this.
And I think it’s a stretch to say that screaming “I’m a loser” is positive punishment, which seems just as likely to reinforce negative self beliefs that lead to the outcomes described in the parent comment’s research and opposite of what the user presumably wants.
To your point, just flipping this around to “I’m a winner” doesn’t seem quite right either. But more importantly, reinforcing the idea that “I’m a loser” seems counterproductive either way.
> Importantly punishments need to happen after the unwanted behavior. So being punished before the behavior occurs doesn’t make any sense.
Also importantly, punishment as a mechanism for changing behavior is generally considered less effective than reinforcement approaches, which tend to be more effective and carry fewer downsides (like internalizing the idea that I'm a loser).
Positive in the conditioning sense just means "something you have to do" where a negative punishment would be something being removed. It doesn't specify if the outcome is bad or good
Fair. I was conflating this with positive reinforcement, and the nuance of the terminology got a bit mixed up.
To your last point, I think the conclusion remains similar. Even if yelling “I’m a loser” qualifies as “something you have to do”, it seems unlikely to be an effective “punishment” in that framework for the reasons explored above.
> That is not a psychologically healthy way to frame this.
But lying to yourself is so much worse. Eventually you won’t hold the illusion anymore and you’ll crash hard. It’s better to be honest and grounded in reality if you want any improvement to be sustainable
In practice, I have never encountered a person who benefits from such negative self beliefs in the long term, or anyone who would claim they were beneficial. My perspective on this is driven by many years of real world experience with addiction and related communities, and more personal exploration of the negative bias than I can quantify.
There’s a good reason addiction recovery is now often focused on the underlying issues of shame and other negative self beliefs. They tend to be at the root of the issue, despite being the default reaction people feel towards themselves due to social conditioning.
Quite a bit of social media use happens for perfectly good reasons. Organizing local events, finding and attending local events, meeting people in other regions who care about a common cause, etc.
What tends to distress people is that social media is also a toxic hellscape that simultaneously stresses them out and addicts them by playing on their evolutionary instincts and needs for social connection while feeding them engagement bait.
And so unplugging is a common topic these days, because people are trying to live better lives.
I get that it’s a pet project, but if this pet project was aimed at alcoholics trying to get sober, I think people would look at it in a different light because people take alcoholism seriously, and reinforcing negative loops that actually perpetuate alcoholism would be justifiably criticized.
I personally don’t think we’re taking social media harms seriously enough collectively, although there are signs that people are catching up. So while I think this project comes from the right place and I’m all for having a bit of fun, I think it’s actually quite problematic in its current state given the issue it attempts to address, and I don’t think the fact that it’s intended to be fun should shield it from the feedback it’s getting.
> Or should we just face it.
The sentence following this is just objectively false to a degree that I don’t even see the humor in it. It’s schoolyard stuff that perpetuates the problem.
For most people, social media is something that happened to them, and the nature of the relationship is asymmetrical.
The companies building these products spend millions weaponizing their apps to take advantage of human psychology, while social forces have made these apps ubiquitous and part of the fabric of many people’s lives.
I don’t think it’s fair to say people “let” social media control them any more than it’s fair to say someone predisposed to alcoholism “lets” alcohol control them.
This isn’t to say we don’t need to each take steps to improve our situations or unplug from social media, but I’m pointing this out because of how it relates to your earlier diagnosis that “Everyone who uses social media is a loser”, which points the finger in the wrong direction and frames the issue as a personal problem vs. a growing systemic social issue.
Of course not everyone. That goes without saying, everyone is different and you’ll always find someone who is an exception. But when you build something for other people to use, it is useful to understand what is the most common mindset for your audience.
> To your point, just flipping this around to “I’m a winner” doesn’t seem quite right either. But more importantly, reinforcing the idea that “I’m a loser” seems counterproductive either way.
Maybe the solution would be to have to shout something embarrassing but not deprecating towards your own self-worth. Like “I eat spaghetti through my nose” or “my poop comes out really soft”. You’d certainly avoid using social media in public.
While a “punishment” that involves calling oneself a loser is a problem, the entire approach of punishment-based learning has given way to reinforcement approaches because they tend to be more effective in the long term without the negative effects of punishment-based approaches.
To put this another way, using punishment to stop using social media is probably not a good approach either way. Yelling “I’m a loser” is just one of the worst variants of this specific approach.
Yes - but then you go into the vicious cycle. Something in the line of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
Why are you drinking? — the little prince asked.
- In order to forget — replied the drunkard.
- To forget what? — inquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.
- To forget that I am ashamed — the drunkard confessed, hanging his head.
- Ashamed of what? — asked the little prince who wanted to help him.
- Ashamed of drinking! — concluded the drunkard, withdrawing into total silence.
---
What helps is self-forgiveness and being gentle towards oneself. (I also was in the mode of guilt-tripping myself; and still, I do that often. But it does not help.)
I imagine what the OP meant is that when you feel you are wasting time on Social Media, if you say "I am a winner / I am better than this" (or something more positive), it will block the social media for you. So basically the reverse.
What suggests that shouting "I am a winner" is less annoying than shouting "I am a loser"? In fact, not just less annoying, but it has to be pleasant as in that scenario you would have to scream it while you are already struggling with impulse control. Even the slightest reason to not to do so would see you not do it in that type of situation.
“Don't speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn't know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that's why it's called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life.”
If you’re addicted to scrolling social media then you’ll just get used to calling yourself a loser to get another fix. Or you just uninstall the extension.
There needs to be a healthier alternative to that replaces the social media habit, that is reinforced by enjoying it. I do this by reading books I wouldn’t normally read, which also gives me a reason to browse indie bookshops.
It is tough because if AI can take most jobs on here, the fallback is likely something physical like the trades. Id prob start rolling up small local HVAC companies as the founders retire. Robots are a long ways off and AI isn't automating away repair of a RTU or VAV system in a 40 year old building.
Total nonsense. Political separation doesn't undue physical oil infrastructure. Crude would continue to flow as is, and trade deals would immediately be struck. Meanwhile, incremental pipeline capacity south would be rapidly approved while existing East/West expansion is hopeless under a Liberal government.
I am a physical oil trader and I buy 200,000 barrels of oil a day to supply refineries in Canada. I have also worked on financing for Energy East, Keystone XL, Northern Gateway, TMX and the Line 9 reversal in my career. Trust me when I say the Canadian government is the problem and Alberta would be MUCH better off from an oil perspective split off of Canada.
Your trade deals are a flash in history. Native Aboriginal Canadians do not owe anything to oil traders south of the border. You can't force them join your ghettos.
What nonsense are you on about? My company works in partnership with aboriginals. They are supportive of oil broadly speaking. It is one of the largest revenue sources for them.
What is the nonsense part? What advantages does Alberta gain from separation vis a vis pipelines? They’re never going to get more oil to the pacific in either case. Separating weakens their hand in negotiating gas pipelines to the pacific. No one currently cares if Alberta builds more pipelines to the USA. There is no hindrance here. So what does Alberta gain?
Not to mention all the other things Alberta loses. BC the popular vacation and retirement spot, and like Spain to the British would be closed off to Albertans with their holiday homes now under foreign buyer and speculation taxation.
All of Alberta was ceded to the crown through the numbered treaties prior to the establishment of the province. Are you implying that there’s something about treaty 8 that makes it different from treaty 4, 6, 7, and 10?
It’s all ceded territory, and assuming an independent Alberta retains the crown why would it present any issue?
> Indians DO HEREBY CEDE, RELEASE, SURRENDER AND YIELD UP to the Government of the Dominion of Canada, for Her Majesty the Queen and Her successors for ever, all their rights, titles and privileges whatsoever, to the lands included within the following limits, that is to say:
Even if Alberta became a republic or joined the US, its secession after all, a moment when old agreements which by their original text promising a fresh suit of clothes to each chief every 3 years and $5 per year to every band member are up for even more re-evaluation than they have already been subject to.
Change is uncomfortable and scary, and AI represents a pretty seismic shift. It touches everything from jobs and creativity to ethics and control. There's also fatigue from the hype cycle, especially when some tools overpromise and underdeliver.
It touches everything from jobs and creativity to ethics and control.
And the results from all that "touching" are mixed at best.
Example: IBM and McDonalds spent 3 years trying to get AI to take orders at drive-thru windows. As far as a "job" goes, this is pretty low hanging fruit.
They might stay in California, but that probably has far more to do with available researchers and employee preferences than some agreement with the Attorney General.