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Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

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Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#492

Post by ur-whale »

the_real_cher wrote: post #473

This seems disingenuous on her part. Almost the entire company was posting hearts on X in support of Sam. The essence if her claim is they were doing that for their stock options? Cynical take to me.

> Almost the entire company

Almost the entire company is composed of wide-eyed young AI researchers who probably were never confronted in their entire life to the kind of psychopathic predator Altman seems to be.

One of the thing these type of folks excel at is winning the hearts of bright yet gullible folks.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#493

Post by torginus »

int_19h wrote: post #404
nickpp wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "real estate holdings" Real estate is not cash. It's cash spent . > History also shows us that sooner or later, unbounded wealth disparity ends poorly for the wealthy. History also shows us that societies without wealth disparity end up poorly for everyone . As in starving. > You can have big business without robber barons. Excellent. Go ahead and build one, compete and put Scrooge McDuck out of business.

> societies without wealth disparity end up poorly for everyone. As in starving. If this is meant to be a reference to Soviet-style communism, then all that shows is that centrally planned economies run by dictators end up poorly for everyone. They don't end up without wealth disparity, though. In fact, USSR had the highest wealth disparity at "peak communism" under Stalin, when well-off party bureaucrats and high-ra…

Think about what you wrote, it doesn't make sense even at the first glance. Millions of Americans have a yearly income in excess of $1million, for those people, employing house staff is a trivial expense.

And these people aren't even considered 'rich' by the standards of truly rich people.

True, the Soviet elite, like any elite ever, had great resources at its finger tips, and high ranking bureaucrats had access to perks like luxury resorts reserved for Party officials, better cars and luxury housing, I'm pretty sure no one had the excess wealth of having a hundred million dollar yacht (or equivalent), that today's billionaires (including Russian oligarchs) have.

Edit: I'm not allowed to respond to you, probably some anti-flamewar mechanism (and downvote you, which you obviously did to me), so let my answer stand here.

You wrote:

>USSR had the highest wealth disparity at "peak communism" under Stalin

then in when I refuted your post, you replied:

>Was said inequality less than in capitalist societies? Sure

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#497

Post by jononor »

bmitc wrote: post #347
cma wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In deciding to hire him back, Helen Toner said OpenAI lawyers said she and other members of the board could be personally liable if the company lost a lot of money over keeping him out.

I suppose that would be a reasonable reason on a practical level. However, how is a board liable for that? The CEO lies and intentionally withholds information, employees strangely hold the company hostage, and yet it's the board held liable? The board governed the non-profit OpenAI.

I am pretty sure a lawyer could be found that would happily take that case against the board. And that Altman would be quite willing to go that far. At least I would not have staked my professional life and personal economy on it not happening.

PG called it over 15 years ago: "You could parachute him [Sam Altman] into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king".

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#498

Post by tim333 »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #277
benreesman wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s utterly mundane, completely common knowledge for those who have been around long enough to have watched both the start and end on Loopt that Altman is a dark-triad sociopath with one marketable skill: (in pg’s words) “becoming powerful”. Guy can’t code, can’t design, can’t publish, can’t climb a traditional corporate ladder with even modest guardrails against fraud, can’t keep his hand out of the cookie jar. Can…

I think it might be time to turn back the clock a bit and revisit some of the things pg said way back when he was pitching Sam Altman to lead YC and the general reaction was "...who?" 2008: "You could parachute [Sam Altman] into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without the…

>Musk, and Zuckerberg, and Bezos, and Ellison, and all the other amoral wealth-hoarders

Not so much wealth hoarders but products of the capitalist system where you can own a company and it may do well and become worth lots of money.

And what is the alternative? Communist communal ownership of the means of production is not really cracking along these days.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#499

Post by ttyyzz »

amelius wrote: post #494

Question: has he now been definitely fired? I lost track.

In November 2023, he was surprisingly dismissed, but confirmed in office a few days later. He has been in office ever since! The story refers to this "surprising dismissal".
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