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95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

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11–20 of 67 posts

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#12
post #5
post #3

Makes you wonder how many other companies would have this level of consensus supporting their CEO

None. A CEO with >95% approval rating is unheard of, even considering sole-proprietorships

It’s fairly unusual that a CEO getting fired would put a company’s ability to continue to operate at such high risk.

I’d take it less as a signal of approval in the ordinary sense (though some of it’s probably that!) and more one of perceived dependence. Altman = Microsoft = big piles of cash.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#14
post #5
post #3

Makes you wonder how many other companies would have this level of consensus supporting their CEO

None. A CEO with >95% approval rating is unheard of, even considering sole-proprietorships

Sure, but (even more importantly after passing some threshold of signatures) the question's not 'do you approve of Altman as CEO' but 'do you approve of the board of your employer'.

And I'm not just saying it's the board vs CEO, it's job preservation etc. not just abstract personality approval. (Again, much more so for the last 20% than the first.)

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#16

Given the board sees winding down the company within its mandate, they may just keep playing this game of chicken.

Unfortunately, shutting down OpenAI would probably be seen as a win for Poe by Adam D’Angelo. He literally stands to lose both Quora and Poe if Sam keeps scaling up OpenAI’s product strategy. It’s one of the biggest conflicts of interest I’ve ever seen in business.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#17
This is how we know that mankind cannot be trusted to develop harness and maintain an all-powerful AGI :

absolutely everybody who is working on the project is more interested in the value of their own stock options than what happens in the future when this thing gets loose.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#18
post #3

Makes you wonder how many other companies would have this level of consensus supporting their CEO

It's apples and oranges. Employees are expressing a preference for making a profit versus the nonprofit board. I'm sort of impressed 5% of the crowd might elevate conscience over cash. No other business has been so insane as to pursue a naked profit objective under the guise of a nonprofit operation. The fact that Altman did so is not a virtue, in my opinion.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#20
post #16

Given the board sees winding down the company within its mandate, they may just keep playing this game of chicken.

Unfortunately, shutting down OpenAI would probably be seen as a win for Poe by Adam D’Angelo. He literally stands to lose both Quora and Poe if Sam keeps scaling up OpenAI’s product strategy. It’s one of the biggest conflicts of interest I’ve ever seen in business.

I agree but Sam made the deliberate choice to leave him in place after forcing out Reid Hoffman over Inflection AI.

https://www.semafor.com/article/11/19/2023/reid-hoffman-was-...

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