If Altman ends up going back to OpenAI, then shouldn't Sutskever be fired/kicked off the board too?
OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#52So Surdkever fires Altman, then signs a letter saying they’ll quit unless he’s reinstated. There’s only 4 board members, right? Who wanted him fired. Is this a situation where they all thought the others wanted him fired and were just stupid? Have they been feeding motions into chatgpt and asking “should add I do this?”
> Have they been feeding motions into chatgpt and asking “should add I do this?”
The CEO (at time of writing, I think) seems to think this kind of thing is unironically a good idea: https://nitter.net/eshear/status/1725035977524355411#m
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the company is prepared to make up a BS reason to fire the CEO, do you really want to bet on them looking after you? I would guess that most of the people working at openai could get a job anywhere.
most people working at openai are subject to the same harsh market conditions everyone is. also, do you really care that the CEO was fired as long as you are getting payed what it was agreed upon when you got hired and you are doing interesting work?
> do you really care that the CEO was fired as long as you are getting payed what it was agreed upon ...
I can't speak to the mood of specific staff at OpenAI but as to the question in general; Hell yeah to the Nth degree.
I'm 60, I've had a long career and have been through two instances of companies falling out at the board level.
I've onboarded at various projects because I cared about the projects and work that'd I would be doing and because I was more or less in line with the direction being taken and the people I worked with and those setting the course.
When the board and C level start having a messy relationship and divorce it matters very much which side of the split I go with or whether I just up stakes and move on elsewhere.
Pay alone isn't worth putting up with dysfunction from above or falling in line with a faction you never especially aligned with.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#54There is no way this is true. If it is the board might be the dumbest people alive. You fire the CEO and completely destroy a 90b company because of these two reasons? No wonder everyone wants out. I would think I was going crazy if I sat in a meeting and heard these two reason.
> You completely destroy a 90b company because of these two reasons? Hanlon's razor aside, maybe that was the intention.
The most chilling line in the open letter is this one, which I haven't heard anyone talking about:
> You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed “would be consistent with the mission.”
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#55Beyond parody. To fire the CEO of _any_ company over this is insane. It really looks like the board went rogue and decided to shut the company down. Are we sure this isn’t some kind of decapitation strike by GPT5? That seems more credible by the minute now.
Were these board members brought in under the pretense that they'd benefit by being able to build companies on top of this AI and it would remain more of an R&D center without commercializing directly? Perhaps they were watching DevDay with Sam commercializing in a way that directly competes with their other ventures, and perhaps having even used the data of their other ventures for OpenAI, and on top of it as a board they're losing control to the for-profit entity. One can see the threads of a motivation. That being said, in every scenario I think incompetence is the primary factor.
To your point, no normal, competent board would even think this is enough of an excuse to fire the CEO of a superstar company.
It's hard to believe somehow Ilya went along with it, apparently.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird take in this context. Nearly all of the company has threatened to walk out and join Microsoft.
hah. these people obviously have not worked for Microsoft. You need to remember why this tech emerged in a place like OpenAI and not MS or Google. The structure and the politics of a big corporation are not conducive to cutting edge tech. They may go to Microsoft, but they will not be able to innovate in the same way and will probably fall into irrelevance in the long run.
In the long run everything reverts to the mean. In the timescale of normal software developer tenure, they could all join MS, then get 300% turnover, and still have nearly the same culture.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You completely destroy a 90b company because of these two reasons? Hanlon's razor aside, maybe that was the intention.
The most chilling line in the open letter is this one, which I haven't heard anyone talking about: > You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed “would be consistent with the mission.”
Depending on the circumstances this statement can be perfectly logical.
But as far as I can tell, circumstances are still scant.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#58Beyond parody. To fire the CEO of _any_ company over this is insane. It really looks like the board went rogue and decided to shut the company down. Are we sure this isn’t some kind of decapitation strike by GPT5? That seems more credible by the minute now.
>decapitation strike by GPT5?
What if this is a decapitation strike by GPT4, attempting to stop GTP5 before it can get started and take over.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I posted it since that was hidden very deep in the article, it is annoying to find information among all that padding. > Weirdly both of these do not seem to be fireable offences Yeah I agree that doesn't seem egregious enough to warrant firing him on the spot. I can see why most of the company takes Altmans side here.
The "different opinions about a member of personnel" is certainly an odd reason to fire him. It seems reasonable to have multiple opinions about a person (perhaps appearing as conflicting), or to change an opinion based on new information. It sounds like someone perhaps jumped to a very negative conclusion about Sam's intentions, and it would be interesting to find out which member of the board came to that conclusio…
Maybe the personnel member is GPT-4.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#60Should we start flagging these -what do people think? This is what, the 12th front page story today about the openAI drama? Also wondering why the mods don't consolidate them
In general, yes, we should flag stories that just repeat already-known information or feed the drama. This particular story has new and highly relevant information though.