Seeing a lot of terrible takes in the comments here, and a small minority of good takes.
Sure, a lot of people have good things to say about Altman. But a lot of people have _very_ bad things to say about him.
If you have encountered deceptive, manipulative people in the past, and have since educated yourself on how these people operate, it is clear as day that Sam is a deceptive, manipulative person.
A lot of people cannot conceive of the idea that this could be true simply because they have never encountered such people in real life or their only exposure to them is through seeing Frank Underwood in House of Cards.
People like this are very good at covering their tracks. But sometimes things slip through the cracks and become red flags. One red flag is not usually enough to determine the entirety of someone's character. But enough red flags start to paint a picture...
- Helen Toner, former OAI board member, accusing him of outright lying
- Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati allegedly raising concerns about his leadership style as creating a toxic work environment, manipulating, pitting executives against each other, lying, etc.
- Claims from recently-resigned members of OAI's safety team that he was deceptive and manipulative
- PG's blogs stating that Altman could become king of a cannibal island (read: reality distortion field / cult leader potential)
- Allegations of abuse from Annie Altman, his sister
- Allegations of him using manipulative behavior at Reddit to have a former CEO fired (cannot find the link to the original Reddit post describing this, hopefully someone can leave a comment with it)
- Allegations of being fired from YC due to prioritizing his own interests over YC's
Ultimately, none of these things on their own are damning evidence of him being deceptive and manipulative. But when they start to stack up, you have to keep in mind that there is usually no smoke without fire...