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OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

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Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#431

A real power struggle! How exciting. It goes to show that no matter the structure, when it comes down to it the investors always have the last say.

Not here when the governance structure the way it is. The board has the last say. Now, there are obviously ways that investors can put pressure on the board and with literally billions at stake I can imagine that happening. Think serious espionage level drama.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#432
post #237

I am not sure it really makes sense for the investors to continue with OpenAI. It seems like this incident proved that the constitution of the company wasn't really compatible with a profit focus. It was a split from the beginning, and obviously a questionable arrangement. It just came to a head to make it obvious. The business and investment people want to make money. Many of the researchers want to take their time…

On Monday they’ll form OpenAI 2.0 S-Corp and move a bunch of ether into it. Investors will love the new structure and support an even higher valuation. Ilya and co will maintain a non-profit thing that probably refocuses to pure AGI. Everybody wins why didn’t they do it from the start.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are already the dumbest board in history (even dumber than Apple’s board firing Steve Jobs). So it’s not out of keeping with anything. Besides, those 2 independent board members (who couldn’t do fizz-buzz if their lives depended on it) won’t be staying long if Sam returns— nor are they likely to ever serve on any board ever again after their shenanigans.

Some of the board member choices are baffling. Like why is Joseph Gordon Levitt’s wife on the board? Her startup has under 10 employees and has a personal email address as the contact address on the homepage.

Non-profits always have those spouses of wealthy people whose whole career is being a professional non-profit board member with some vague academic/skin-deep work background to justify it. I'm just surprised OpenAI is one those.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#434

Man, the board already looked reckless and incompetent, but this solidifies the appearance. You can do crazy ill-advised things, but if you unwaveringly commit, we’ll always wonder if you’re secretly a genius. But when you immediately backtrack, we’ll know you were a fool all along.

Dude, everyone already thinks the board did a crazy ill-advised thing. They're about to be the board of like a 5 person or so company if they double down and commit. To be honest I hate takes like yours, where people think that acknowledging a mistake (even a giant mistake) is a sign of weakness. A bigger sign of weakness in my opinion is people who commit to a shitty idea just because they said it first, despite all…

This isn’t a shitty idea. The board fired it’s CEO and the next day is apparently asking him to come back.

At this point, I don’t care how it resolves—the people who made that decision should be removed for sheer incompetence.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#435
post #333
post #140

Reinstate Sam and now the rest have to go.

For those downvoting me, I’d be interested to hear how you think it could work for him to come back and work with the people that unceremoniously fired him and made it sound like he had ethical violations when it now seems clear it was a disagreement over strategy. If there is a disagreement over strategy and he goes back what value do the others provide now? Also, wouldn’t it seem clear that the board acted rashly i…

> For those downvoting me

From my own experience, short assertive comments tend to get downvoted on HN. Unlike reddit, votes here are less about agree/disagree.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#436

He was outed for a reason. Why in the world would the board backtrack this? I think this is rumor mill reporting, trying to get things out too fast.

> He was outed for a reason.

I've yet to see a good one. And even if: how you do something is often as important or even more important than that you do something. And on the 'how' bit the board just utterly failed. This is the most watched company in the world right now on the tech front, you can't just oust the CEO without a very good plan. If you do that kind of thing on a whim you are not fit to serve on the board of any company, but especially not on the board of this one.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#437

Man, the board already looked reckless and incompetent, but this solidifies the appearance. You can do crazy ill-advised things, but if you unwaveringly commit, we’ll always wonder if you’re secretly a genius. But when you immediately backtrack, we’ll know you were a fool all along.

Dude, everyone already thinks the board did a crazy ill-advised thing. They're about to be the board of like a 5 person or so company if they double down and commit. To be honest I hate takes like yours, where people think that acknowledging a mistake (even a giant mistake) is a sign of weakness. A bigger sign of weakness in my opinion is people who commit to a shitty idea just because they said it first, despite all…

You're not wrong, but in this case not enough time has emerged for the situation to change or for new facts to emerge. It's been a bit over a day. All that a flip-flop in that short timeframe does is indicate that the board did not fully think through their actions. And taking a step like this without careful consideration is a sign of incompetence.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#438
It now seems to me that it was inevitable that something like GPT would take off - but it didn't necessarily have to come from OpenAI. Someone else would have filled their place. The collective ML knowledge and research were rapidly evolving, computing was getting faster and cheaper. The pressure was building and at some point, something somewhere had to pop off. They were a great but not a singular team.

And it looks like now they might be very close to the limits of their own capability. I'm not sure how much more they can give.

On the surface, their new features always seem to be quite exciting. But when the dust settles it is again all very lackluster, often copied from open source ideas. Not something you can bet on.

Their biggest moats are their popularity, marketing, and their large bags of cash. The latter of which they are burning through extremely quickly. The thing is, it's easy to build something massive when you don't care about unit economics. But where do they end up when the competitive forces commoditize this?

When listening to interviews with Sam I was always surprised by how little useful information I am able to get out of listening to him. I'm sure he's very smart but he tries to project the aura of radical honesty while simultaneously trying to keep all of his cards extremely close to his chest. All that without the product chops to actually back it up. That's my read.

Re: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

#440

Are you fucking kidding me? OK. OK. I’ve said this my whole career. Engineers are the most emotional specie of worker. There is a grand delusion that engineers are rational. This just goes to show how irrational they are. Snap reactions like this: sign of a brilliant but fucked up engineer. I am an engineer. I am under no illusion that I’m rational. Quite the opposite.

What was top comment yesterday becomes a farce today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38313026

> Don’t piss off an irreplaceable engineer or they’ll fire you. not taking any sides here.

One scientist's power trip (Ilya is not an engineer) triggers the power fantasy of the extremely online.

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