I think they’ll end up spinning off the non profit. The board members can keep their titles as board members of a now irrelevant org.
Maybe they’ll give the non profit some advisory (fake) role over the new company.
OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
181–190 of 1001 posts
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#182This article itself is likely part of the power struggle.
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#183This makes sense. The board thinks they're calling the shots, but the reality is the people with the money are the ones calling the shots, always. Boards are just appointed by shareholders aka investors aka capital holders to do their bidding. The capped-profit / non-profit structure muddles that a little bit, but the reality is that entity can't survive without the funding that goes into the for-profit piece And if…
A non profit board absolutely calls the shots at a non profit, in so far as the CEO and their employment goes. Non profit boards are not beholden, structurally, to investors and there are no shareholders. No stakeholder would walk away from OpenAI for want of sam Altman. They don’t license OpenAI technology or provide funding for his contribution. They do it to get access to GPT4. There is no comparable competitor av…
This is not just a "non-profit"... it's a non-profit that owns a $90B for-profit company developing revolutionary, once-in-a-century technology. There is a LOT of money at play here.
Others have commented on how Microsoft actually has access to the IP, so the odds that they could pack their toys and rebuild OpenAI 2.0 somewhere else with what they've learned, their near infinite capital and not have to deal with the non-profit shenanigans are meaningful.
I'm not saying Sam is needed to make OpenAI what it is, but he's definitely "the investors' guy" in the organization, based on what has surfaced over the last 24 hours. Those investors would rather have him there over someone else, hence the pressure to put him back. It doesn't matter whether you and I think he's the man for the job -- what matters is whether investors think they are.
TL;DR the board thinks they have leverage, but as it turns out, they don't
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#184This makes sense. The board thinks they're calling the shots, but the reality is the people with the money are the ones calling the shots, always. Boards are just appointed by shareholders aka investors aka capital holders to do their bidding. The capped-profit / non-profit structure muddles that a little bit, but the reality is that entity can't survive without the funding that goes into the for-profit piece And if…
A non profit board absolutely calls the shots at a non profit, in so far as the CEO and their employment goes. Non profit boards are not beholden, structurally, to investors and there are no shareholders. No stakeholder would walk away from OpenAI for want of sam Altman. They don’t license OpenAI technology or provide funding for his contribution. They do it to get access to GPT4. There is no comparable competitor av…
They officially call the shot.
But right now they get a lot of shitstorm for this inexperience handling.
And it doesn't look good from the board that looks inexperienced.
Gordon-Levitt's wife?? Helen who? D'Angelo with a failing quora and a history of a coup.
Doesn't look good.
I'd bet it starts impacting their personal lives. This is equivalent to them coming out to support Donald Trump. It is that bad.
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#185This makes sense. The board thinks they're calling the shots, but the reality is the people with the money are the ones calling the shots, always. Boards are just appointed by shareholders aka investors aka capital holders to do their bidding. The capped-profit / non-profit structure muddles that a little bit, but the reality is that entity can't survive without the funding that goes into the for-profit piece And if…
A non profit board absolutely calls the shots at a non profit, in so far as the CEO and their employment goes. Non profit boards are not beholden, structurally, to investors and there are no shareholders. No stakeholder would walk away from OpenAI for want of sam Altman. They don’t license OpenAI technology or provide funding for his contribution. They do it to get access to GPT4. There is no comparable competitor av…
Nothing matters if you don’t have the money to enforce the system. Come on get real. Whatever the board says MS can turn off the money in a second and invalidate anything.
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#186How would the trust be repaired then?
I guess if Sam is back, Ilya is planning his way out.
Regardless due to this stupid stunt, OpenAI is hardly the same.
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#187Sam Altman should make it a condition of his return that the current board be dissolved and have a completely new board picked to avoid such dramatics in the future.
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#188This is unfathomably depressing for me; I am solidly in the non-profit, open etc. camp, and the way the board has handled the situation seems to be putting a tombstone to any opponents to Altman's way of doing things: profits uber alles, moats galore, non-profit-wink-wink-nudge-nudge; an unmitigated disaster.
Other commenters here have pointed out what seems to be most plausible: Altman was making moves to fire or alter the board, so they made a (bad) first move, and it's now backfired on them.
It's a bad situation.
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#189In a space where OpenAI currently has a razor-thin moat, these kinds of thrash will end up putting you out of the thought-leader slot.
You can embrace AI safety all you want. But not being the leader means you have very little influence to effect any kind of shift in the industry.
I am an outsider, and very far from executive leadership. But this whole move seems like a predictable fiasco.
Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
#190It could be that Microsoft is leveraging them to bring him back. This board may seem mercurial at the moment, but we really, truly, and honestly still do not have the big picture yet.
How are they leveraging them? My understanding is Microsoft has no power over the board.