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

arstechnica.com

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

#461

Post by ffgjgf1 »

sangnoir wrote: post #162
s1artibartfast wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The board's job is not to do right by 'Sam & Greg', but to do right by OpenAI. When mangement lays off 10,000 employees, the investors congratulate management. Thats why Sam & Greg wasn't all they complained about. They lead with the fact that it was shocking and irresponsible. Ron seems to think that the board is not making the right move for OpenAI.

> They lead with the fact that it was shocking and irresponsible. I can see where the misalignment (ha!) may be: someone deep in the VC world would reflexively think that "value destruction" of any kind is irresponsible. However, a non-profit board has a primary responsibility to its charter and mission - which doesn't compute for those with fiduciary-duty-instincts. Without getting into the specifics of this case: a…

Of course they can only achieve their mission with funding from for profit corporations and their actions have possibly jeopardized that

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

#462

Post by mlyle »

deanCommie wrote: post #392
Michelangelo11 wrote: post #240

I've seen some discussion on HN in which people claimed that even really important engineers aren't -too- important and that Ilya is actually replaceable, using Apple's growth after Woz' departure as an example. But I don't think that's the best situation to compare this to. I think a much better one is John Carmack firing Romero from id Software after the release of Quake. Some background: During a period of about 1…

> Meanwhile, id under Carmack kept cranking out hit after hit for years, essentially shrugging off Romero's firing like nothing happened. Romero was fired in 1996 Until this point, as you mentioned id had created multiple legendary franchises with unique lore, attributes, and each one groundbreaking tech breakthroughs: Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake. After Romero left, id released: https://en.wikipedia.o…

> But the point is for anyone experiencing or interacting with these games today, Quake is Quake. Nobody remembers 1, 2 or 3 - it's just Quake.

Quake 3 was unquestionably the pinnacle, the real beginning of esports, and enormously influential on shooter design to this day.

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

#463

Post by no_wizard »

wolverine876 wrote: post #46

> 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…

Corporate legal entities should have a mandatory vote of no confidence clause that gives employees the ability to unseat executives if they have a supermajority of votes.

That would make things more equitable perhaps. It’d at least be interesting

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

#464

Post by dragonwriter »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #454
Solvency wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every jackass brain dead move Elon Musk has ever made hasnt gotten him fired yet, then allocating too many teams to side projects instead of AI research should not be a fireable offense.

Musk was fired as CEO of X/PayPal.

Fired as the CEO of X twice, the last time right before it became PayPal.

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

#465

Post by biofunsf »

throw555chip wrote: post #319
biofunsf wrote: post #247

What I’d really like to understand is why the board felt like they had to this as a surprise coup, and not a slower more dignified firing. If they gave Altman 1 weeks notice and let him save face in the media, what would they have lost? Is there a fear Altman would take all the best engineers on the way out?

As someone else commented on this page, it wasn't a coup.

This seems a pedantic point. In the “not legal” sense I agree since that seems part of a real coup. But it certainly was a “surprise ousting of the current leadership”, which I mean when I say coup.

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

#466

Post by [deleted] »

sheepscreek wrote: post #351
threeseed wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In other words, it’s unheard of for a $90B company with weekly active users in excess of 100 million. A coup leaves a very bad taste for everyone - employees, users, investors and the general public. When a company experiences this level of growth over a decade, the board evolves with the company. You end up with board members that have all been there, done that, and can truly guide the management on the challenges t…

[deleted]

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

#467

Post by Apocryphon »

bmitc wrote: post #460
Apocryphon wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CEOs mainly sit in meetings with people reporting things to them and then the CEO providing very high-level guidance. Isn’t that essentially the job of a film producer? You do see a lot of productions where there’s a ton of executive producer titles given out as almost a vanity position.

A producer, yes, but not the film's director.

My original post literally asks if it’s more accurate to compare CEOs with film producers and not directors.

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

#468

Post by ffgjgf1 »

cthalupa wrote: post #412
s1artibartfast wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my other response. If you have people sign a contract that says the mission comes first, but also give them profit sharing stocks, and cap those profits at 1.1 Trillion, it is bound to cause some conflicts of interest in reality, even if it is clear who calls the shots when deciding how to balance the mission and profit

There might be some conflict of interest but the resolution to those conflicts is clear: The mission comes first. OpenAI employees might not like it and it might drive them to leave, but they entered into this agreement with a full understanding that the structure has always been in place to prioritize the non-profit's charter.

> The mission comes first.

Which might only be possible with future funding? From Microsoft in this case. And in any case if they give out any more shares in the wouldn’t they (with MS) be able to just take over the for-profit corp?

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

#469

Post by chasd00 »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #87

Everyone I speak to who have have been building on top of OpenAI - and I don’t mean just stupid chat apps - feel like the rug has just been pulled out from under them. If as it seems, dev day was the last straw, what does that say to all the devs?

I work in consulting the genai hype machine is reaching absurdity in my firm. I can’t wait until Monday :)

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

#470

Post by bmitc »

Apocryphon wrote: post #467
bmitc wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A producer, yes, but not the film's director.

My original post literally asks if it’s more accurate to compare CEOs with film producers and not directors.

I misread it then with directors instead of producers. Apologies for that confusion.
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