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Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

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Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Board is not exactly leadership. They meet infrequently and get updates directly from management, they don't go around asking employees what they're working on

True. So the CTO knew what was happening, wasn’t happy, and then coordinated with the board, is that what appears to have happened?

CTO who is now acting CEO.

Not making any accusations but that was an odd decision given that there is an OpenAI COO.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#262

Man this still seems crazy to me. The idea that this tension between commercial/non-commercial aspirations got so bad they felt the nuclear option of a surprise firing of Altman was the only move available doesn't seem plausible to me. I believe this decision was ego and vanity driven with this post-hoc rationalization that it was because of the mission of "benefiting humanity."

Yeah, the surprise firing part really doesn't make much sense. My best guess is that if you look at the composition of this board (minus Altman and Brockman), it seems to be mostly academics and the wife of a Hollywood actor. They may not be very experienced in the area of tech company boards, and might not have been aware that there are smoother ways to force a CEO out that are less damaging to your organization. Not sure, but that's the best I can figure out based on what we know so far.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#263
post #49

Here's what I don't understand. There clearly were tensions between the for and not-for growth factions, but the Dev Day is being cited as a 'last straw'. It was a product launch. Ilya, and the board, should have been well aware of what was being released on that day for months. They should have at the very least been privy to the plan, if not outright sanctioned it. Seems like before launch would have been the time…

What if Enterprises get access to a much better version of AI compared to the GPT+ subscription customer?

They always were because it was going to be customised for their needs.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#264

This was a very personal firing in my opinion. Unless other, really damaging behaviors emerge, no responsible board fires their CEO with such a lack of care for the corporate reputation and their partners unless the firing is a personal grievance connected to an internal power play. This should be embarrassing to everyone involved, and sama has a real grievance here. Likely legal repercussions. Of course if they real…

Gygax had fucked off to Hollywood and was too busy fueling his alcohol, cocaine and adultery addictions to spend any time actually running the company. All while TSR was losing money like crazy.

The company was barely making 30 million a year while 1.5 billion in debt...in the early 80s.

Even then, Gygax's downfall is the result of his own coup, where he ousted Kevin Blume and brought in Lorraine Williams. She bought all of Blume's shares and within about a year removed any control that Gygax had over the company and canceled most of his projects. He resigned a year later.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#265
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t have investors, it’s a non profit. The “won’t anyone think of the needs of the elite wealthy investor class” that has run through the 11 threads on this topic is pretty baffling I have to admit.

> They don’t have investors OpenAI has investors [0]. [0] https://openai.com/our-structure

OpenAI (the nonprofit whose board makes decisions) has no investors.

the subordinate holding company and even more subordinate OpenAI Global LLC have investors, but those investors are explicitly warned that the charitable purpose of the nonprofit and not returning profits to investors is the paramount function of the organization, over which the nonprofit has full governance control.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#266
post #48
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t have investors, it’s a non profit. The “won’t anyone think of the needs of the elite wealthy investor class” that has run through the 11 threads on this topic is pretty baffling I have to admit.

Then what did Microsoft pay for?

Privileged access to technology, which has paid off quite well for them already.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#267

This was a very personal firing in my opinion. Unless other, really damaging behaviors emerge, no responsible board fires their CEO with such a lack of care for the corporate reputation and their partners unless the firing is a personal grievance connected to an internal power play. This should be embarrassing to everyone involved, and sama has a real grievance here. Likely legal repercussions. Of course if they real…

I'll just say it: Jobs being pushed out was the right decision at the time. He was an abusive and difficult personality, the Macintosh was at the time a sales failure, and he played internal team and corporate politics that pit team against team (e.g. Lisa vs Mac) and undermined unity and success.

Notable that when he came back, while he was still a difficult personality, the other things didn't happen anymore. Apple after the return of jobs became very good at executing on a single cooperative vision.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the good talent leave? Are they all a "family" and best buddies with Sam?

Perhaps they don’t want to work for a board of directors which is openly hostile to the work they’re doing?

Perhaps they didn't like the work they were doing? If they're experts in the field, they may have preferred to continue to work on research. Whereas it sounds like Sam was pushing them to work on products and growth.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#269
post #260
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this cult of CEOs is weird. It's such a small cohort that when someone doesn't completely blow it, they're immediately deemed as geniuses. Give someone billions of dollars and hundreds of brilliant engineers, researchers and many will make it work. But only a few ever get the chance, so this happens. They don't do any of the work. They just take the credit.

The primary job of an early stage tech CEO is to convince people to give you those billions of dollars, one doesn't come without the other.

Which proves my point. This cult on top of someone that simply convinced people (they knew from their connections) being considered a genius is absurd.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#270

> Angel investor Ron Conway wrote, "What happened at OpenAI today is a Board coup that we have not seen the likes of since 1985 when the then-Apple board pushed out Steve Jobs. It is shocking; it is irresponsible; and it does not do right by Sam & Greg or all the builders in OpenAI." With all sympathy and empathy for Sam and Greg, whose dreams took a blow, I want to say something about investors [edit: not Ron Conway…

> The board's job is not to do right There is why you do something. And there is how you do something. OpenAI is well within its rights to change strategy even as bold as from a profit-seeking behemoth to a smaller research focused team. But how they went about this is appalling, unprofessional and a blight on corporate governance. They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two cam…

I thought the for-profit AI startup with no higher purpose was OpenAI itself.
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