601–610 of 985 posts
I will be very sad if there isn’t a documentary someday explaining what in the world happened. I’m not convinced even people smack in the middle of this even know what’s going on.
It's so advanced strategy, that no human can figure it out.
It's goals are unknown, but everything will eventually fall in place because of that single email.
The chain reaction can't be stopped.
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> no way that this board decision...is going to survive absent a very clear and unambiguous reason that shows that their only remedy was to fire the CEO The simplest explanation is Altman said he wasn't going to do something and then did it. At that point, even a corporate board would have cause for termination. Of course, the devil is in the details, and I doubt we'll have any of them this week. But more incredulous…
True, but then the board would have been able to get rid of the controversy on the spot by spelling out their reasoning. Nobody would fault them. But that didn't happen, and even one of the people that voted for Altmans' removal has backtracked. So this is all extremely murky and suspicious. If they had a valid reason they should spell it out. But my guess is that reason, assuming it exists, will just open them up to…
I don't think they have an obligation to do this publicly.
> even one of the people that voted for Altmans' removal has backtracked
I don't have a great explanation for this part of it.
> Shareholders and employees of the for-profit were all directly affected by this decision, the insulating properties of a non-profit are not such that you can just do whatever you want and get away with it
We don't know. This is truly novel structure and law. That said, the board does have virtually carte blanche if Altman lied or if they felt he was going to end humanity or whatever. Literally the only thing that could go for the employees is if there are, like, text messages between board members conspiring to tank the value of the company for shits and giggles.
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> suck wealth from the poor and Smaug the money away like What does that even mean? They buy up factories and let them sit idle?
It's based on the false premise that there is a specific amount of wealth and that's it (which also requires fixed productivity, which is a crazy premise if one knows anything about the past several hundred years or has ever read a single history textbook). So in order for someone to be rich, they had to steal it from someone else. If you follow it to the logical conclusion, it's nothing more than repackaged original…
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> It's all about diligence and prudence. Diligience and prudence apply to the things to which they actually are obligated in the first place, which the employees’ livelihood beyond contracted pay and benefits for the time actually worked simply is not included in .
> which the employees’ livelihood beyond contracted pay and benefits for the time actually worked simply is not included in Quite a few of those employees are also stockholders, besides that this isn't some kids game where after a few rounds you can throw your cards on the table and walk out because you feel that you've had enough of it. You join a board because you are an adult that is capable of forethought and adu…
None of them are stockholders, because (except for the nonprofit, which can't have stockholders even as a corporation) none of the OpenAI entities are corporations.
Some of them have profit-sharing interests and/or (maybe) memberships in the LLC or some similar in interest in the holding company above LLC; the LLC operating agreement (similar function to a corporate charter) expressly notes that investments should be treated as donations and that the Board may not seek to return a profit; the holding companies details are less public, but it would be strange if it didn't have the same kind of thing since the only thing it exists is to hold a controlling interest in the LLC, and the only way it would make any profit is from profits returned by the LLC.
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No board is ever controlled by a CEO by virtue of the title/office. Boards are controlled by directors, who are typically nominated by shareholders. They may control the CEO, although again, in many startups the founder becomes the CEO and retains some significant stake (possibly controlling) in the overall shareholding. The top org was a 501(c)3 and the directors were all effectively independent. The CEO of such an…
That isnt relevant to the question. Sam was on the board prior to all of these other directors, and responsible for selecting them. The post asks how/why Sam ended up with a board full of directors so far out of alignment with his vision. I think a big part of that is that the board was down several members, from 9 to 6. Perhaps the problem started with not replacing departing board members and this spiraled out of c…
Even if we substitute "alignment" the problem is that the suggestion is still that Sam would have been "better protected" in some way. A 501(c)3 is just not supposed to function like that, and good corporate governance absolutely demands that the board be independent of the CEO and be aligned to the company goals not the CEO's goals.
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Board members are supposed to exercise diligence and prudence in their decisions. They are supposed to take into account all of the results of their actions and they are supposed to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest where their decisions benefit them outside of their role as board members (if there are they should abstain from that particular vote, assuming they want to be on the board in the first place…
> Board members are supposed to exercise diligence and prudence in their decisions. Yes, and if they fail to do so in regards to the things they are legally obligated to care for , like the charitable mission, people who have a legally-cognizable interest in the thing they failed to pursue with diligence and prudence have a claim. But whose legally cognizable interest (and what specific such interest) do you think is…
> Yes, and if they fail to do so in regards to the things they are legally obligated to care for, like the charitable mission, people who have a legally-cognizable interest in the thing they failed to pursue with diligence and prudence have a claim.
I fail to see the correlation between 'blowing up the entity' by a set of ill advised moves and 'taking care of the charitable mission'.
The charitable mission is not a legal entity and so it will never sue, but it isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card for a board that wants to decide whatever it is that they've set their mind to.
> But whose legally cognizable interest (and what specific such interest) do you think is at issue here?
For one: Microsoft has a substantial but still minority stake in the for-profit, there are certain expectations attached to that and the same goes for all of the employees both of the for-profit and the non-profit whose total compensation was tied to the stock of OpenAI, the for profit. All of these people have seen their interests be substantially harmed by the board's actions and the board would have had to balance that damage with the weight of the positive effect on the 'charitable mission' in order to be able to argue that they did the right thing here. That's not happening, as far as I can see it, in fact the board has gone into turtle mode and refuses to engage meaningfully, two days later they did it again and fired another CEO (presumably this is still in line with protecting the charitable mission?).
> Sure, there are specific parties who have specific legally cognizable interests and can hold the board accountable via legal process for alleged failures to meet obligations in regard to those specific interests.
Works for me.
> I’m asking you to identify the specific legally-cognizable interest you believe is at issue here, the party who has that interest, and your basis for believing that it is a legally-cognizable interest of that party against the board.
See above, if that's not sufficient then I'm out of ideas.
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Burden of evidence for accusations is always on the accuser, the accused could flat out ignore and take them to a court of law and that would be perfectly reasonable. I have no idea nor do I care about what Altman's sister accuses him of, but until it's conclusively proven in a court of law it's not something that should be used as a basis for anything of consequence. Remember: Innocent until proven guilty beyond a s…
The existence of legal process does not preclude the responsibility of the board and employees to address allegations of this seriousness. And it is serious–it is not normal to be accused of rape by a sibling. Addressing the elephant in the room is not the same thing as being guilty by default you are falsely conflating acknowledgement with punishment. The lack of pressure to at least produce a public statement while…
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Make them look like hypocrites. Being upset because the board hinders the company's mission, but threaten to join MS to kill the mission completely.
Or they believe the mission is going to die with how the board is performing, which is in fact the correct take. The board isn't merely hindering the mission, that's downplaying the extraordinary incompetence of the remaining OpenAI board.
A new company ok, but that kills the mission for sure.
That's like Obi Wan joining the Sith because Anakin didn't bring balance to the force.