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OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

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Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#401

Post by kromem »

turkus wrote: post #277

I think it could simply be a matter of vision. Sam just recently sounded more cautious and calculated than ever, possibly scaling down the expectations from the current state of his company's AI [1]. That might not have played well with the board, based potentially on his previous messaging to them. [1] https://twitter.com/Andercot/status/1725300091450519927

I suspect you may be right.

I think OpenAI has made some really bad decisions with the core tech even while making great decisions with the overall services, and from Altman's various comments over the past two years I was under the impression this was coming from him.

The only reason I'm skeptical of this is the abruptness of it all. Why it needed to happen with a 24h turnaround is bizarre, unless there was something like an internal meeting last week regarding GPT-5 where his doomerism was even more sending things off the rails and there was a reactionary immediate "we no longer have faith you can do this."

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#402

Post by az226 »

jejeyyy77 wrote: post #21

def some sort of scandal. The prodigy Altman is booted after creating potentially the most successful company of all time and replaced by CTO who had no prior ML/AI experience becomes CEO. Wow.

CTO pick is strange. But hey, it’s now a female led company so the board can pat itself on the back.

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#403

Post by kromem »

turkus wrote: post #277

I think it could simply be a matter of vision. Sam just recently sounded more cautious and calculated than ever, possibly scaling down the expectations from the current state of his company's AI [1]. That might not have played well with the board, based potentially on his previous messaging to them. [1] https://twitter.com/Andercot/status/1725300091450519927

I suspect you may be right.

I think OpenAI has made some really bad decisions with the core tech even while making great decisions with the overall services, and from Altman's various comments over the past two years I was under the impression this was coming from him.

The only reason I'm skeptical of this is the abruptness of it all. Why it needed to happen with a 24h turnaround is bizarre, unless there was something like an internal meeting this week regarding GPT-5 where his doomerism was even more sending things off the rails and there was a reactionary immediate "we no longer have faith you can do this."

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#404

Post by mi3law »

ademeure wrote: post #391

Sam implied OpenAI had a major breakthrough a few weeks ago in a panel yesterday: "Like 4 times now in the history of OpenAI, the most recent time was just in the last couple of weeks, I've gotten to be in the room when we sort of like, pushed the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward. And getting to do that is like the professional honor of a lifetime". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFFvqRem…

On the contrary, the video you linked to is likely to be part of the lie that ousted Altman.

He's also said very recently that to get to AGI "we need another breakthrough" (source https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/has-sam-altman-gone-full-g... )

To predicate a company so massive as OpenAI on a premise that you know to not be true seems like a big enough lie.

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#405

Post by baidifnaoxi »

- Cant be a personal scandal, press release would be worded much more differently

- Board is mostly independent and those independent dont have equity

- They talk about not being candid - this is legalese for “lying”

The only major thing that could warrant something like this is Sam going behind the boards back to make a decision (or make progress on a decision) that is misaligned with the Charter. Thats the only fireable offense that warrants this language.

My bet: Sam initiated some commercial agreement (like a sale) to an entity that would have violated the “open” nature of the company. Likely he pursued a sale to Microsoft without the board knowing.

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#406

Post by jug »

gzer0 wrote: post #312

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google has this to say: https://x.com/ericschmidt/status/1725625144519909648?s=20 Sam Altman is a hero of mine. He built a company from nothing to $90 Billion in value, and changed our collective world forever. I can't wait to see what he does next. I, and billions of people, will benefit from his future work- it's going to be simply incredible. Thank you @sama for all you have done for al…

Or maybe Eric Schmidt is worse than we think. ;-) (half joking)

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#408

Post by oth001 »

gkoberger wrote: post #27

I know I won't get a lot of love for this, but Sam is a really good person. I don't know him well, but I've known him since long before OpenAI. He's not perfect, but behind the scenes he's a genuine and upstanding person. I've met lots of wealthy smart people, and he's the only exception. He was the only person I trusted in this situation, and I'm genuinely nervous that he's no longer running OpenAI.

I don't want my eyeballs scanned though

Re: OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

#409

Post by gardenhedge »

yokoprime wrote: post #287
nicklevin wrote: post #272

Pure speculation and just trying to connect dots... I wonder if they realized they are losing a lot of money on ChatGPT Plus subscriptions. Sam tweeted about pausing sign-ups just a few days ago: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1724626002595471740 Lots more signups recently + OpenAI losing $X for each user = Accelerating losses the board wasn't aware of ?

Not something you would fire someone on the spot over. This firing is spooking investors and costing them (and partners like MSFT) money

The board seems so small and unqualified to be overseeing OpenAI and this technology..
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