Microsoft hiring Sam Altman gives them 'carte blanche' to IP

Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was pushed out of his position last Friday by the company's board of directors. Altman was hired by Microsoft (MSFT) shortly after his firing. After what has been described as a "huge coup" at OpenAI, employees are similarly threatening to leave and work for Microsoft alongside Altman.

NYU Professor of Technology, Operations, and Statistics Vasant Dhar characterizes this opportunity as giving Microsoft "carte blanche" — or a blank check — on access to OpenAI's intellectual property through its development team behind its artificial intelligence model.

"Altman is going to go there. [OpenAI President Greg] Brockman is going to go there. I bet a bunch of employees will go there because this is an area where relationships really matter," Dhar tells Yahoo Finance. "Expect to see a fair amount of IP just sort of walk out and walk into Microsoft."

Click here to watch the full interview on the Yahoo Finance YouTube page or you can watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live here.

Video transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: So what does this do in terms of resetting the landscape here? Now that Satya has made this move very smartly, very definitely, and in a very short amount of time, what does this do to the competition in this space?

VASANT DHAR: Well, you know, I think it sort of further distances Microsoft from the competition. They made a brilliant move by investing in OpenAI 49%, give them access to the technology. But this move by OpenAI's board actually gives them Carte Blanche to the IP, right?

I mean Altman's going to go there, Brockman's going to go there. I bet a bunch of employees will go there because this is sort of an area where relationships really matter. And people like working with people that they have had a good history with. So yeah, expect to see a fair amount of IP just sort of walk out and walk into Microsoft. So great for Microsoft in sort of further getting ahead of the competition in AI.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Now, of course, heavy is the head that wears the crown. Now that Microsoft does have Sam Altman here, what does that mean in terms of expectations? Because it seems like already with OpenAI on its own, things are already moving in leaps and bounds for Microsoft. Does this put a lot more pressure on Microsoft? And judging by what you've seen, can they actually live up to it?

VASANT DHAR: Well, you know, it's good pressure, right? It's one thing when you have pressure and you're behind and you don't have the best people. It's another thing when you have pressure and you have the best people and you're ahead. So this is good pressure, right? This is just manna from heaven just dropped into their lap here. So I can see that Microsoft will be very happy with what's playing out out there.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: So if you are another tech company and you're seeing this very quick reshuffling here, how are you viewing it? How do you even begin to compete now that Microsoft, as you said, has made itself so much further ahead than the others?

VASANT DHAR: Well, that's a great question. And I think, you know, there is competition, right? There's moves towards open source like a lot of people feel like AI should be open source. So in the longer term, we will see competition and we will see more pressure towards open source, especially when it comes to AI safety.

So remains to be seen whether Microsoft actually embraces open source when it comes to AI like the way they have in general, which is what Satya did. He sort of moved Microsoft away from it's sort of closed proprietary architecture to UNIX, open source, cloud. So I think it'll be interesting to see how they move now that they have sort of complete control over the IP, to what extent they open it up. Anyone's guess at this point as to how they will and how long.