Reminds me of the TechCrunch episode of Silicon Valley TV show. Everyone was there to make the big buck but all collectively pretended they were doing their work for the good of humankind.

This guy and Rob Pike should have a talk.

AI slop writing for AI slop business

I have been attempting to write a lot more with AI, but it's so gimmicky. It's always spitting lines like this: " it's not just about x – it's about y." like in this post. I find it so frustrating that no matter the prompt I throw at it, it eventually repeats itself again after some time. Good technical and succinct writing is almost impossible to iterate on with AI for me.

I like how my eyes went over the first sentence, barely parsing it and already discarding the information, because its obviously ai generated. Its like the circumstances we live in added a new layer of perception to my brain to guard itself against the flood of useless information!

Worked on me, I read the first paragraph and decided against reading it.

I really hope it's intentional. The author is a smart, accomplished person. He even published books. It's sad if this kind of person thinks it's okay to just outsource their writing to AI.

Again, many comments here saying I only care about the money, and while comp is an important factor I think it characterizes me as someone I'm not, and forgets what I've been doing for the past two decades. I've spent thousands of hours of my life writing textbooks for roughly minimum wage, as I want to help others like me (I came from nothing, with no access tech meetups or conferences, and books were the gateway to a better job). I've published technologies as open source that have allowed others to make millions and are the basis for many startups. I'm also helping pioneer remote work and hoping to set a good example for others to follow (as I've published about before). So I think I'm well known for caring about a lot of things during the past couple of decades.

  What were the toughest ethical quandaries you faced when deciding to join OpenAI?

It would be good if the performance improvements made can be applicable across the industry so everyone benefits. But it doesn't sound unbelievable that OpenAi may want to keep some of it secret to keep an advantage over others?

Thanks for taking the risk in this environment and posting about your experience from a personal standpoint. [environment: people will come at you from all angles with very passionate opinions]

I feel like I can do something about something too but no one is picking me to do anything about anything.

> I stood on the street after my haircut and let sink in how big this was, how this technology has become an essential aide for so many, how I could lead performance efforts and help save the planet.

Brendan.

First of all congratulations on your new job. However,

It is easier to just say to everyone it is about the money, compensation and the stock options.

You're not joining a charity, or to save the planet, this company is about to unload on the public markets at an unfathomable $1TN valuation.

Don't insult your readers.

>Did fixing it from the inside work for any of those other issues?

No, it never does. Those people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but...it might just work for us.

I’m replying to your comment in the hopes of getting a response. In the blog post, you said:

> There's so many interesting things to work on, things I have done before and things I haven't.

What are the things you haven’t done before, if you could mention them?

Interesting. Out of curiosity, how long do you think OpenAI can survive as a company? Put another way, what would be your guesses for probability of failure on 1yr, 3yr, and 5yr horizons?

EDIT: possibly a corollary--does Mia pay money for chatgpt or use a free plan?

Turn them off!

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> Comp is important of course,

The string "compens" appears exactly once in your post:

> But there are other factors to consider beyond a well-known product: what's my role, who am I doing it with, and what is the COMPENSation?

You did it for the money; don't try to rationalize it, because no one believes you. For that amount of cash, I'd probably jump on Altman's bubble for a year or two.

You gonna open source it?

Probably because "making the world a better place" has been a trope used so much in the industry that it's made it to a TV show [1]. It's fine to be passionate about your job. It's fine to be paid well. You don't need to make us believe that you're mother Theresa on top of it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso

Reminds me of when I was younger and thought of companies like Google and Tesla as a force for good that will create and use technology to make people's lives better. Surely OpenAI and these LLM companies will change the world for the better, right? They wouldn't burn down our planet for short-term monetary gain, right?

I've learned over the years that I was naive and it's a coincidence if the tech giants make people's lives better. That's not their goal.

> and I'm not sure what it is.

The obvious lie for a start

Right? Like what an incredibly naive thing to think, that BG is going to contain power consumption lmao. OpenAI is always going to run their hardware hot. If BG frees up compute, a new workload will just fill it.

Sure you might argue "well if they can do more with less they won't need as many data centers." But who is going to believe that a company that can squeeze more money from their investment won't grow?

Tangentially, I am looking forward to learn the new innovations that come from this problem space. [Self-rightous] BG certainly is exceptional at presenting hard topics in an approachable and digestible manner. And now it seems he has an unlimited fund to get creative.

The AI train is going with or without you, if you can be part of it and improve the situaton, why not.

Even a 25% reduction in resource usage will probably not be enough, AI datacenters are still a huge resource sink after all

The blog author is the same guy who wrote this when leaving his previous company https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2025-12-05/leaving-intel.h... :

> I also supported cloud computing, participating in 110 customer meetings, and created a company-wide strategy to win back the cloud with 33 specific recommendations, in collaboration with others across 6 organizations.

> My next few years at Intel would have focused on execution of those 33 recommendations, which Intel can continue to do in my absence. Most of my recommendations aren't easy, however, and require accepting change, ELT/CEO approval, and multiple quarters of investment. I won't be there to push them, but other employees can (my CloudTeams strategy is in the inbox of various ELT, and in a shared folder with all my presentations, code, and weekly status reports). This work will hopefully live on and keep making Intel stronger. Good luck.

OpenAI deserves these big shots.

I stopped reading just after that. “I joined PhilipsMorris to make smoking cigarette smoking safer…”

The problems are interesting and the pay is exceptional. Just fucking own it.

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And the consequence of burning more tokens, of course, is more widespread adoption, weaving AI more deeply into the fabric of our reality.

Was going to say the same thing, but I'm pretty sure he already knows that. Smart people can convince themselves of everything.

It's a blog post, not an article. A narrative of events, not an interesting write-up on a topic.

Not the first time either. See this person's previous blog when leaving his earlier company. Lots of Kim kardashian vibe of self inflated self worth.

For people who’s main computing devices are phones, this isn’t hard to believe at all.

Interacting outside of the tech bubble is eye opening. Conversely, the hair stylist might have mentioned the brand of a super popular scissor supplier/other equipment you’d have never heard of.