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  • Hacker News
  • If he were not such openly against open models and China, his potential hiring pool would include more idealistic people.
    by imjonse
  • Funny, new hires are similarly worried the Anthropic CEO only cares about money, so they have something in common!
    by chris_wot
  • It's funny when these executives, on one side, will happily lay people off, implement attrition policies, or engage in morally-questionable behaviors, all with the purpose of maximize profits, while on the other hand blame the employees that they don't care about the company, and are only in it for the money. It's a thinly veiled way of saying "only I am allowed to play the game as the ruthless capitalist".
    by ingonealan3
  • I once worked as a contractor at a startup whose CEO had little trophies on display in a wall case showing off funding rounds for previous startups. There were like 3 employees and 15 contractors, and he had one of the contractors give a speech about believing in the mission or whatever. It was laughable. I was only there a couple months and found out later they got bought out by the largest company in the space. He probably bought a few more tacky red Ferraris after that.
    by mypalmike
  • Yes, that's the exact greedy classism that the century-ago Gilded Age made well-known to dedicated students of U.S. history today. I'd be shocked if 1% of students who passed an handwritten-essay history exam in the past fifty years remember it at all. On the plus side, at least we don't have to reinvent terminology for this: it's all already written down and studied in depth and condensed into a two hours PBS documentary so that anyone in the cog class today can learn about it — even if they've been largely been denied literacy by the leadership class starving out public education:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjpYzFtxfjU via https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/gilded-age...

    by altairprime
  • I can somewhat understand their mindset.

    Once you reach a certain level of wealth, you don't really need money just to survive—you already have enough.

    After that point, money becomes more like a high score you're trying to beat.

    Hitting certain revenue targets, reaching specific asset milestones—that kind of thing.

    And because of that, they start to believe they're working for some other value, not for money.

    But if you talk to them long enough, you always end up at the same conclusion: 'It's still about money, isn't it?'

    They'd never admit it, though.

    'Because I'm not earning money just to survive—I'm different from you guys.'

    They genuinely believe that.

    Meanwhile, I'm here thinking that if I don't do work I hate, I'll literally go hungry tomorrow.

    by jdw64
  • Dario Amodei is the Woody Allen of the AI world always worried and neurotic about something.
    by wewewedxfgdf
  • Aren't they (where they = tech CEOs, at least) all?
    by pixelatedindex
  • I'm sorry. Companies are not charities or families but like sports teams. We come together for a limited objective, where the company meets its objectives and I get paid for my time.

    I was laid off last year along with many of my colleagues, some time before the layoff the group director had an impromptu meeting and declared we are working for the good of the world and that we should all feel aligned with this message to serve humanity - "Our mission is to empower every person and every individual organisation on the planet to achieve more".

    No your mission is to pump the stock and return value to shareholder. My mission is to help you do it and get paid for my time.

    And it turns out more often that not, that to serve humanity is a cookbook.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zon...

    by lain98
  • It's an industry where companies with "open" right in the name lobby against open models and training on stolen data is viewed as more ethical than training on existing models. It takes some time to catch up with reality there.
    by m132
  • So Anthropic studied humanity, and their big discovery was: new hires care about money. Peak anthropology.
    by jdw64
  • Be careful what you wish for. Ideological employees exist, and they might even work for less. But that doesn’t mean they will always agree with Dario’s ideology. This is something Google has found out.

    And when those ideological people start making noises about the ways they disagree with the company, he might miss the more mercenary employees.

    by janalsncm
  • Here's an idea: instead of paying your employees $800k, how about you cut their pay to $80k. See how many of them are truly in it for the mission.
    by briga
  • There will be be plenty of people, they just wouldn't be in Silicon Valley. Or possibly anywhere in the USA.

    $800k/year in the UK is "Buy nice house in commuter belt in one year without bothering with a mortgage, three years if you want somewhere or something fancy but still not aristocratic, ten years if you do want aristocratic".

    by ben_w
  • Anyone who thinks people work for anything other than money is delusional. Anyone who works for "the mission" is an idiot - no company or billionaire running a company cares about you. They will let you go in a heart beat.
    by mirzap
  • Nah just go a step further and offer dorm accomodation and some slop for food, and then let people volonteer.
    by Maxion
  • The good ones go work for OpenAI. And they lose any chance in the race.
    by hahahaa
  • Let's start with the CEO's pay.
    by Frenchgeek
  • "Ask not what your Company can do for you —ask what you can do for your Company". - Anthropic CEO.
    by worldthruword
  • I, as an engineer, shall work for a mission and not (so much) for money. But as soon as the mission can possibly be completed without me using the latest shiny AI tool, it is okay for the company to get rid of me.
    by hasley
  • wow, what a beautiful and brave statement. thank you for your service
    by r_lee
  • The concept of job security and stability has been broken, so everyone is too busy securing their future by collecting as much money before there is another record profit layoff!
    by mawadev
  • Yep we are all bogleheads now
    by hahahaa
  • This. Let me know when I can pay for a Chipotle meal or rent in mission statements. Until then saving up money is important.
    by qurren
  • I know a lot of good people that got thrown away by mission focussed companies. They were loyal and put with all kinds of BS for those companies. I was laid off from jobs I went way above and beyond for. They didn't hesitate. They are the ones that turned us all into disposable mercenaries. Why wouldn't we go for the money? What else are they offering, thumbs up emojis?
    by ogou
  • If only I could pay my bills with thumbs up emojis. I can even double my offering from one to two!
    by pixelatedindex