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

openai.com

261–270 of 787 posts

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

#261

> The fact that we did not lose a single customer will drive us to work even harder for you, and we are all excited to get back to work. I'm not a big customer, but I am starting the process of moving away from OpenAI in response to these events

For serious work, you don't have a choice though, the competition isn't there

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

#262
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If the product is useful (it is to me), then why do you care so much as to the internal politics? If it ceases to be useful or something better comes along, sure. But this strikes me as being serially online and involved in drama

These internal drama can play out in the service. Frame the question as: do you want to build on an unstable/unsteady platform?

As long as you can outrun the technical debt, sure. Nothing lasts forever. Architect against lock in. This is just good vendor/third party risk management. Avoid paralysis, otherwise nothing gets built.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you don't rely on a business that had 80% of its staff threaten to quit overnight?

> staff threaten to quit overnight They didn't, though. They threatened to continue tomorrow! It's called "walking across the street" and there's an expression for it because it's a thing that happens if governance fails but Makers gonna Make. Microsoft was already running the environment, with rights to deliver it to customers, and added a paycheck for the people pouring themselves into it. The staff "threatened" to…

[flagged]

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better lesson is that a board can't govern a company if the company won't follow its lead. They were misaligned with almost the entirety of the employees.

Because they formed an additional entity, which is a for-profit, and has leadership treating the whole thing as a for-profit, and so employees also see what their eyes are telling them. The misalignment is not accidental, it was carefully developed over the last few years.

Or: the employees all joined to work on AI, and they succeeded at building the top AI company, under Sam, and their support of Sam was not engineered or any sort of judgement error on their part. I like to imagine that the employees are smart and thoughtful and have full agency over their own values. It was the Board who apparently had zero pulse on the company they were supposed to oversee.

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

#265
post #222

> The fact that we did not lose a single customer will drive us to work even harder for you, and we are all excited to get back to work. I'm not a big customer, but I am starting the process of moving away from OpenAI in response to these events

That’s a strange statement because I definitely canceled my subscription as a result of the happenings. This very public battle confirmed for me how misaligned OpenAI is with the originating charter and mission of its nonprofit. And I didn’t want to financially contribute towards that future anymore. I guess my subscription didn’t count as a customer.

This happens to me frequently. When I report an obvious problem in some service it is always the very first time that they've heard of it and no other customers seem to have the issue.

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

#266
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then we'd witness the market decide whether the company value was provided by its board or its employees

It's a non-profit. It should have no value aside from the mission. The only reason the employees mobilized in their whining and support of a person, whose only skills seems to be raising money and cult of personality, seems to be so that Altman can complete the Trojan horse of the non-profit by getting rid of it now that it has completed the side quest of attracting investors and customers.

Which owns a for profit. They would have been left with no employees, no money, no credits, and crown-jewels already licensed to another company. On top of that spending life in minority shareholders lawsuits.

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

#267
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, their big mistake was being unwilling to be clear and explicit about this, but as I read it, the board's problem with him was that he wasn't actually acting as the executive of the non-profit that he was meant to be the executive of, but rather was acting entirely in the interests of a for-profit subsidiary of it (and in his own interests), which were in conflict with the non-profit's charter. I think where the…

Argue their case? To whom? They were the board.

To the stakeholders, which include employees, customers, partners and, by OpenAI own mission statement, all of humanity in general.

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

#268
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't look like the guy into revenge. He seems extremely goal focused and motivated. The kind of person that'd put this behind him very fast to save energy for what matters.

> He doesn't look like the guy into revenge. How do you know this? Idk why this is the comment that broke the camel's back for me, but all over this site people have been making character determinations about people from a million miles away through the filter of their public personas.

This is perpetually one of my last favorite patterns in humans. Declaring someone an idiot when they’ve never met them and they’re one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet. Not referring to Sam here.

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

#269
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The board should have called their bluff and let them walk.

I wonder if they ACTUALLY would have landed at Microsoft. And then, would they actually have their TC post tender met there? And would they continue working on AI for some time, independent of reorgs, etc? All of them? A place like MSFT has a TON of process and red tape, the board could have called their bluff and kept at least 40%.

And they would have given MS the 60 percent of their employees more interested in politics than anything else.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reeks of CEO speak; general bullshit that seems to go against all practical reasoning of the situation. Don't fall for it.

Might you describe CEO speak as not consistently candid?

We call him SAlty.
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