131–140 of 154 posts
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Yeah the abrupt vibe shift on HN with regards to altman is pretty odd. Suddenly he's a Jobs-esque product visionary?
Undoubtedly, there are a lot of HN posters with a vested interest in OpenAI's continued success… Talk is cheap when it doesn't affect your bottom line.
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Even if he isn’t critical to OpenAI’s future there is the issue of how the board handled this. They surprised everyone from their most significant investors to their employees, which would be justified if they have a very good reason. Without an excellent reason, all of this looks capricious and incompetent.
Thank you - this is one of the few reasonable takes I've seen on this whole mess. There is literally nothing Altman could have done that would justify the board having handled the situation in this way, and it makes them look grossly incompetent. Even if Altman had been engaged in some kind of criminal act, this is not the way in which you proceed. And regardless of whatever corporate structures you have in place, it…
No information came to light to back this sudden and unexpected decisions but were there criminal acts involved, it certainly would not be unexpected. CEOs get instant fired for being under investigation for criminal acts all the time. But again, 48hs later it seems clear it was not the case
I don't follow OpenAI or SV news all that much. Is this guy really that critical to the company? I thought Ilya Sutskever was the genius? Is this a non-compete thing, where they're scared Altman will take company secrets to a competitor, or is this dude actually a major factor in the company's success (and not just a lucky bystander)?
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> His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes tha…
If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, Regardless of who they fired, if the board is known to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about top executives without so much as a heads up to large investors, it's not clear that any investor will see them as being worth investment.
It is non-profit company, so investors should not be expecting too much increased returns for their investment other than the product and cooperation what this company provides.
If firing the CEO has no significant negative impact for actual product quality or cooperation, it should not be in the intrestes of investors.
Especially, if the argument for firing is revolved around profit/non-profit future of the company, if the expectations for the original investors was right (investing non-profit). In that case, it is not arbitrary or capricious decisions. But I would of course would like to see some transparency, since we don't really know what happened yet.
Looks like a lot of people were taken by surprise. It's almost as if whoever planned the coup wasn't very... candid (to borrow a word).
Also: “when you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk!”
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> How would you even onboard and meet payroll in a week for a non existent entity if you suddenly had even half that number? > Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting? Not saying it will happen but I'd honestly say this would be the least of the issues. VC's and established companies…
I mean we’ll see. As far as I can tell Altman’s real serious talent is getting billionaire types to like him. First Paul Graham then Elon and the initial OpenAI funders. In both cases he seems to have been dropped rather abruptly after running things for a few years. He has never personally built meaningful tech and has definitely never actually demonstrated anything approaching popularity with any rank and file empl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if he isn’t critical to OpenAI’s future there is the issue of how the board handled this. They surprised everyone from their most significant investors to their employees, which would be justified if they have a very good reason. Without an excellent reason, all of this looks capricious and incompetent.
Thank you - this is one of the few reasonable takes I've seen on this whole mess. There is literally nothing Altman could have done that would justify the board having handled the situation in this way, and it makes them look grossly incompetent. Even if Altman had been engaged in some kind of criminal act, this is not the way in which you proceed. And regardless of whatever corporate structures you have in place, it…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-19/openai-ne... ( https://archive.vn/hLl2l ) A group of OpenAI executives and investors racing to get Sam Altman reinstated to his role as chief executive officer have reached an impasse over the makeup and role of the board, [...] Altman, who was fired Friday, is open to returning but wants to see governance changes — including the removal of existing board members, sa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if he isn’t critical to OpenAI’s future there is the issue of how the board handled this. They surprised everyone from their most significant investors to their employees, which would be justified if they have a very good reason. Without an excellent reason, all of this looks capricious and incompetent.
Thank you - this is one of the few reasonable takes I've seen on this whole mess. There is literally nothing Altman could have done that would justify the board having handled the situation in this way, and it makes them look grossly incompetent. Even if Altman had been engaged in some kind of criminal act, this is not the way in which you proceed. And regardless of whatever corporate structures you have in place, it…
Sometimes this is the _only_ way in which you proceed. If you gain knowledge of something truly egregious and don't eject the culprit you become immediately liable for any future malfeasance. Sometimes 'wow, gtfo right now' is the only safe course of action.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes tha…
If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, Regardless of who they fired, if the board is known to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about top executives without so much as a heads up to large investors, it's not clear that any investor will see them as being worth investment.
You think they just acted on a whim? Why?
Why is everybody assuming that the board just flipped out and did something insane?
To me, the rational assumption is that the board - being composed of multiple people who seem fairly well-grounded, i.e. not terminally online twitter types - are acting rationally. That's supported by them acting professionally; releasing one single press release and then shutting the hell up, presumably on the advice of their lawyers.