> ”we are identifying and reaching out to former employees who signed a standard exit agreement to make it clear that OpenAI has not and will not cancel their vested equity and releases them from nondisparagement obligations”
Well, they say they are. But the nondisparagement agreement repeatedly forbids revealing the agreement itself, so if it wasn't cancelled those subject to it would be forbidden to point out that the public claim they were going to release people from it was a lie (or done only for people from whom OpenAI was not particularly concerned about potential disparagement.)
“disparagement" is whatever is defined in the agreement, which reportedly (from one of the people who declined to sign it) includes discussing the existence of the agreement.
This is not normal for being a corporate employee. This was certainly going to come out eventually and cause big problems, but to the extent Sam thinks AGI is around the corner he might not be playing the long game.
"We're hereby making a legally binding commitment that those clauses are void, whether anyone reaches out to us or we manage to reach out to them or not."
Unless and until that's what they say, looks like they’re not doing that.
Looks like they’re doing that.