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Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

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Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#7
Sam Altman:

I recognize that during this process some questions were raised about Adam’s potential conflict of interest running Quora and Poe while being on the OpenAI Board. For the record, I want to state that Adam has always been very clear with me and the Board about the potential conflict and doing whatever he needed to do (recusing himself when appropriate and even offering to leave the Board if we ever thought it was necessary) to appropriately manage this situation and to avoid conflicted decision-making. Quora is a large customer of OpenAI and we found it helpful to have customer representation on our Board. We expect that if OpenAI is as successful as we hope it will touch many parts of the economy and have complex relationships with many other entities in the world, resulting in various potential conflicts of interest. The way we plan to deal with this is with full disclosure and leaving decisions about how to manage situations like these up to the Board. [1]

The best interests of the company and the mission always come first. It is clear that there were real misunderstandings between me and members of the board. For my part, it is incredibly important to learn from this experience and apply those learnings as we move forward as a company. I welcome the board’s independent review of all recent events. I am thankful to Helen and Tasha for their contributions to the strength of OpenAI. [2]

[1] - https://twitter.com/sama/status/1730032994474475554 [2] - https://twitter.com/sama/status/1730033079975366839

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#8
post #5

So even if you maintain strict board control, the money people can still kick you out. Incredible!

The board could have stayed, they (and OpenAI) just had to bear with the consequences (i.e. all the employees leave).

There are no board that can prevent employees from leaving, nor should there.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#10
post #5

So even if you maintain strict board control, the money people can still kick you out. Incredible!

I think the whole OpenAI team being determined to follow Sam was crucial in all this, and is not something that’s easy to control.

Having said that, as there’s obviously a lot of money involved for all OpenAI employees (Microsoft offered very generous packages if they jumped ship), it can be said that money in the end is what people care a lot about.

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