How Microsoft acquired OpenAI. Without any transactions!

 On Saturday the world of tech was in a heightened sense of excitement and buzz after the Open-AI board fired the company CEO Sam Altman and his co-founder Greg Brockman. The move was, to say the least, unexpected. And sudden. Altman, who has seen his profile rise to that of industry visionaries and geniuses after the success of Chat-GPT, was in a way Open AI. He was the face of the company, and by virtue of his position was considered the top guy in the AI world.

 

However, this news was not as shocking as the swift transition of Altman and his crew to Microsoft. I got my desk this morning to receive the most ironically entertaining outcome of the event as read the post of the Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI's new leadership team and working with them. And we’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”

 

This is the smartest move ever from Satya Nadella, an acquisition of an entire company without a single transaction! He technically secures the talents before Monday morning market open. Congratulations to Nadella and his team, we look forward to seeing how beneficial this new move will be to the Microsoft team and the tech world while I am also keen to see how OpenAI Board manages this now.

 

7 Things Great Leaders Do to Be Courageous

 

I learnt bad leadership is usually in part a result of fear. Here are some concrete ways to get beyond it. Here are seven practices of great leadership that you can adopt to begin changing everything.

Embrace the intelligence of the team

Smart leaders recognize that no one can know everything. Instead, they look for and welcome intelligence in team members. You want a variety of experiences and bodies of knowledge to bring to bear on the organization's goals. Encourage people to be smart and active in planning and execution.

Give people authority and responsibility

You can't know everything and you can't do everything. Micromanagement never makes sense when you can train people and then depend on them. Team members need responsibility to grow and have a good relationship to the organization and they need the authority to undertake the responsibility.

 

Make most of your job to help others

You lose nothing when you help others shine. You may not take the bows every time, and that's fine. It's like being a good parent. Your children will grow into adulthood and responsibility, and yet everyone knows it would have been impossible without your help. Enjoying the satisfaction of enabling the best in others is part of being a true grownup.

Keep an eye on something bigger than you

Fear is strongest when you focus on yourself. Every difficult and setback gets tied into your sense of yourself. Of course you will be scared because problems get wrongly turned into attacks on your very existence. Get the focus on something bigger and more important than yourself, like the goals of the organization and principles of being a good leader.

Remember goals enable means

We usually think of means in relationship to goals. You create and steer an organization to achieve the end. But you can also think of goals as what enable means. You want your team to do great things. If you achieve a big goal, were you planning to dissolve your company? Probably not. Goals become reasons for the people in the organization to thrive and work together.

Love the process more than the results

As part of enabling the means, enjoy the process. The true pleasure of leadership isn't in the results, because their importance will always pass, but in the process of working toward achievement. You oversee and are responsible for a thriving community, and success comes in its everyday management and cultivation. When you don't get the results, go back to the process and find what needs to happen differently.

Recognize that mistakes are essential

Fear of mistakes comes with fear of failure. However, you need mistakes if you're to do the real job of leadership and help improve the organization. Find problems through the evidence of mistakes, work with the team to fix them, and then keep moving on. Where's the fun if everything goes right?

Letters of Note

"I do not have the answer to the question of why, at least not now and not in this life. But I do know that there is incredible value in pain and suffering, if you allow yourself to experience it, to cry, to feel sorrow and grief, to hurt. Walk through the fire and you will emerge on the other end, whole and stronger. I promise. You will ultimately find truth and beauty and wisdom and peace. You will understand that nothing lasts forever, not pain, or joy. You will understand that joy cannot exist without sadness. Relief cannot exist without pain. Compassion cannot exist without cruelty. Courage cannot exist without fear. Hope cannot exist without despair. Wisdom cannot exist without suffering. Gratitude cannot exist without deprivation. Paradoxes abound in this life. Living is an exercise in navigating within them.

I was deprived of sight. And yet, that single unfortunate physical condition changed me for the better. Instead of leaving me wallowing in self-pity, it made me more ambitious. It made me more resourceful. It made me smarter. It taught me to ask for help, to not be ashamed of my physical shortcoming. It forced me to be honest with myself and my limitations, and eventually to be honest with others. It taught me strength and resilience."

Source: Letter to her daughters (July 2017) via Letters of Note

 Lawyer Julie Yip-Williams, who was born blind, on the paradoxes of life:

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