> The biggest loss of all, though, is a necessary one: the myth that anything but a for-profit corporation is the right way to organize a company.
This is a big picture idea that we should examine more closely. Right now, in the heat of the chaotic collapse, it's easy to conclude that for-proft corp structure is the only way to go. But I think we should take a "proof is in the pudding" approach and remember all the amazing things that OpenAI accomplished under it's non-conventional org structure. Maybe that non-conventional org structure was a key ingredient in OpenAI's success? Sure, we now know that "long-term stability" does not seem to be a quality of this org structure, but nonetheless it seemed to have lots of other desirable qualities.
Why does it have to be all or nothing? Why not non-profit in the start when you need to attract scientists and engineers who are in it for the challenge, and then change to for profit when you need to attract product managers and people who will scale the company and make it sustainable.
This is a big picture idea that we should examine more closely. Right now, in the heat of the chaotic collapse, it's easy to conclude that for-proft corp structure is the only way to go. But I think we should take a "proof is in the pudding" approach and remember all the amazing things that OpenAI accomplished under it's non-conventional org structure. Maybe that non-conventional org structure was a key ingredient in OpenAI's success? Sure, we now know that "long-term stability" does not seem to be a quality of this org structure, but nonetheless it seemed to have lots of other desirable qualities.