Ilia Suk Launches Safe Super Intelligence to Compete with OpenAI

Ilas Suk's new AI venture, SSI, aims to prioritize safety in superintelligence amid a competitive landscape.

### Ilas Suk's New Venture: Safe Super Intelligence Inc. Competes with OpenAI
* 🤖  Ilas Suk, a pivotal figure in AI and co-founder of OpenAI, has launched a new company called **Safe Super Intelligence Inc. (SSI)** after a tumultuous exit from OpenAI amidst **leadership conflicts**.
* 📅  Following the controversial firing of Sam Altman, Suk's motivations for leaving remain unclear, though he expressed **confidence in OpenAI's future under its current leadership**.
* 🔍  Speculation suggests that Suk may have perceived a **critical need for safer practices** in AI development, prompting his departure and the formation of SSI.
* 💰  SSI has successfully raised **$1 billion in funding**, indicating **strong investor confidence**, despite its primary focus being on developing "**safe super intelligence**" rather than immediate commercial success.
* 🌟  The founding team of SSI includes notable figures such as **Daniel Gross** and **Daniel Levy**, both of whom have impressive backgrounds in **AI and technology**.
* 📈  SSI is currently valued at **$5 billion** and plans to use the funds to acquire **computing power and top talent**, while also navigating potential **conflicts of interest with investors** who are involved in both SSI and OpenAI.
* 🛠️  Unlike OpenAI's complex corporate structure, SSI operates as a straightforward for-profit entity, focusing on hiring individuals with **strong character and extraordinary capabilities**.
* 💭  The AI community is left questioning the implications of SSI's mission and the potential conflicts arising from its investors' **dual interests in OpenAI and SSI**.

Ilas Sus is back, and we have new information about SSI, his brand-new AI company that seems to be competing directly with OpenAI. I'm going to explain what led us here, and then I'm going to tell you all the new information we know about his new company. Ilas Suk was one of the original founders of OpenAI way back years ago, and that's what we're seeing in the picture here. This is Ilia right here, here's Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, here's Mira Moradi, their CTO, and Jacob. Ilas is one of the most influential and top minds in the world of AI. But if you remember, just about a year ago, Sam Altman was fired from OpenAI in what was discovered to be a coup kind of led by Ilia Suk. Apparently, he and some other board members got together and decided to fire Sam Altman, the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI. The exact reason they did so is still a little bit blurry, but we do have information and OpenAI at the time.

put out this blog post. November 17th, 2023. Open AI announced leadership transition, and here is the key paragraph. Mr. Alman's departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board. That basically means he was lying. He was lying to the board. There's no other way to put it. But of course, as you all know, just within a few days, Sam Alman was back at the helm, completely restructured the board. Microsoft's SAA Nadella helped negotiate the deal, also basically threatened to hire everybody from Open AI. And so yeah, Sam Alman was back in the seat. But at the same time, a lot of people think Ilot Sover kind of initiated this whole coup because he saw something inside of Open AI. He saw some new technology, AGI, something where he got really scared, and he was also scared of the way that Open AI was handling it and was really prioritizing getting products out the door instead of safety.

and so this meme came to be. What did Ilas see right here? So what did Ilia see? And then after all of that drama over basically a one-week period, Ilia Suk went silent. We did not hear anything from him for a very long time. He wasn't fired. He didn't leave the company. But he was just kind of in purgatory inside this company, probably figuring out what he wanted to do next. Because if you take a shot at the king, you best not miss, and he missed, and now he's got to go. Then he announced on May 14th, 2024, after almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The company's trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and I'm confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Mira Murati. Now I don't believe this post for a second, because if he really believed OpenAI was going to achieve AGI safely, he probably would

have stayed and wouldn't have left the company that was going to do that exact thing: achieve AGI safely with SSI, his new company. And I'll tell you about that in a moment. And a lot of what people think he possibly saw is strawberry and qar, and we've gotten more information over the last few weeks about those different technologies. I've made multiple videos about them; check it out in the description below. And so we've had multiple articles come out over the last few weeks explaining that strawberry and qar is a new way to give large language models longer-term thinking, get better at math, get better reasoning. And what we've heard even more recently is that strawberry qar is being used to actually generate synthetic data for OpenAI's next Frontier Model, GPT-5. And the reason this is so important is because we are running out of public data. Basically, all the modern LLMs have been trained on all of the public data available. And so there's really two solutions to this: one, you can either do

a lot more with the data you have, and that's certainly a path forward, but we haven't really seen that in play yet. And then the other is synthetic data, so using one model to create data for another model. But what we've kind of seen is that when you're using derivative data like that, the next trained model doesn't really perform all that much better. But now, apparently, if you're able to create really high-quality data and think long-term about it and have better logic and reasoning, that synthetic data is actually really good. And then just a few months ago, Safe Super Intelligence Incorporated was born. This is the new company by Ilia Suk and a couple of other folks, and I'll explain who they are as well. And as we read this, keep in mind this is the company that Ilia started after leaving OpenAI for not doing what they needed to do with safety. And so, put this in the context of this is what he thought OpenAI needed to do but didn't. Super Intelligence is Within Reach, building

Safe super intelligence (SSI) is the most important technical problem of our time. We have started the world's first straight-shot SSI lab with one goal and one product: a safe super intelligence. It's called Safe Super Intelligence Inc. SSI is our mission, our name, and our entire product roadmap because it is our sole focus. Our team, investors, and business model are all aligned to achieve SSI. Now, if their only goal is to achieve safe super intelligence, the business model is a little bit blurry to me, but they've raised a lot of money, and that is the new news that we have today, and I'll get to that in a second. Our singular focus means no distraction by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security, and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures. I don't know how you can raise money from venture capitalists and say that actually our number one goal isn't commercial success; it is safe super intelligence because they don't care about that. As a venture capitalist, you're giving money to get the return.

because you have to answer to LPS and GPS, which are the people who invest in your funds. So, it just seems like a contradictory incentive, to say the least. But maybe I'm missing something. And so, the three people who started this company are Ilia Suk, who we've already talked about, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Gross is an American entrepreneur and investor known for his involvement in the field of artificial intelligence. He's the co-founder of SSI and former Chief Scientist of OpenAI. He was the youngest founder accepted into Y Combinator's program in 2010. He launched a company which was later acquired by Apple in 2013. Then we have Daniel Levy, the third co-founder of SSI. Daniel Levy has a PhD in computer science from Stanford University, no big deal, worked at Facebook, worked at Google, also worked as a member of the technical staff at OpenAI. That's likely where all three of these people met. And then finally, now is the co-founder and principal scientist of Safe Superintelligence. So

what an incredible team to put together. And now for the new information. SSI has raised a billion dollars, a billion dollars for basically just an idea. And you know what? That really speaks a lot to not only the current state of the artificial intelligence market, where investors are clamoring to ram money into any AI company, but also look who it is. It's IL Suk, it's Daniel Gross, it's Daniel Levy. These are the absolute rock stars of the AI industry. 3-month-old SSI valued at $5 billion. Funds will be used to acquire computing power and top talent, so that is aligned with their mission. And their investors include Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. These are two of the most prominent venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. And again, I don't know how they can put so much money in, but commercialization isn't their number one goal. It really seems like that incentive is misaligned. And here's the funny thing: both of those investors, a16z and Sequoia, are invested

also in OpenAI, so they have invested in what seems to be OpenAI's direct competitor, and they put a lot of money in it as well. Jason Horwitz participated in a $100 million fundraising round for OpenAI, which took place in April 2023. On the SEOA website, OpenAI has an investment, so they have also invested in OpenAI. There's so much conflict of interest here; it's kind of making my head hurt. What do you think about all of this? Do you think that a venture capitalist should invest in a company where the first and foremost mission is to reach AGI safely and not commercialize the technology as their priority? Do you think A16Z and SEOA investing in SSI is a conflict of interest with OpenAI? Let me know in the comments. Interestingly, in this Reuters article, unlike OpenAI's unorthodox corporate structure implemented for AI safety reasons, but which made Altman's ouster possible, SSI has a regular for-profit

structure and they're talking about the fact that OpenAI was a nonprofit and then converted into a for-profit, or the nonprofit owns the for-profit. It's very confusing. So, SSI is currently focused on hiring most of all gross. Daniel Gross said they spend hours vetting if candidates have good character and are looking for people with extraordinary capabilities rather than overemphasizing credentials and experience in the field. One thing that excites us is when you find people that are interested in the work, that are not interested in the scene, in the hype. So basically the stuff I talk about. SSI says it plans to partner with Cloud providers and Chip companies to fund its computing power needs but hasn't yet decided which firms it will work with. So a billion dollars going to somebody, likely Nvidia. So that's it. Let me know what you think. If you enjoyed this video, please consider giving a like and subscribe, and I'll see you in the next one.

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** Exclusive Pinecone Partner **

Matthew Berman

Ilas Sus, a co-founder of OpenAI, played a key role in Sam Altman's controversial firing last year.

The board's decision to oust Altman was based on concerns about his candidness in communications.

Following Altman's return and a board restructuring, Sus's actions have raised speculation about his motivations and the future of AI technology.

Ilia Suk's silence after a dramatic week at OpenAI ended with his announcement to leave the company on May 14th, 2024, after nearly a decade.

His decision to leave raised doubts about his belief in OpenAI's mission to achieve AGI safely.

Suk's new company, SSI, is now associated with the emerging technologies of strawberry and qar, which are aimed at providing large language models with longer-term thinking and generating synthetic data for GPT-5.

The Emergence of Safe Super Intelligence Inc.

was founded by Ilia Suk and others after his departure from OpenAI, with a singular focus on building safe super intelligence.

The company aims to create high-quality synthetic data for model training, with the belief that long-term planning and better logic can lead to improved performance.

Despite the blurry business model, the company has raised significant funds, claiming to prioritize safety and progress over short-term commercial success.

The Co-Founders and Success of Safe Superintelligence (SSI)

SSI was founded by Ilia Suk, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Levy, all of whom have impressive backgrounds in artificial intelligence and tech.

The company has raised $1 billion in just three months, achieving a valuation of $5 billion, driven by the founders' strong reputations in the AI industry.

SSI's funds will be used to acquire computing power and top talent, with prominent investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital backing the venture.

Jason Horwitz's $100 million investment in OpenAI and the SEOA's funding in both OpenAI and SSI raise questions about conflicts of interest.

SSI's regular for-profit structure contrasts with OpenAI's unconventional model, creating confusion about their missions.

SSI is focusing on hiring individuals with good character and extraordinary capabilities, while planning to partner with cloud and chip companies for computing power.