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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

#551

Post by yreg »

lucubratory wrote: post #442

It's insane to me how easily Sam's side can spin the board firing him for violating the company's Charter and then not backtracking at all as "Within 24 hours the board has come crawling back, I- er Sam Altman might deign to return if they grovel hard enough and I'm given complete control." This is really, really clearly incestuous tech media stuff as part of a pressure campaign. Sam is the darlin of tech media and h…

> violating the company's Charter

What did he violate specifically?

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

#552

Post by skygazer »

yathaid wrote: post #531
crop_rotation wrote: post #60

The board seems truly incompetent here and looking at the member list it doesn't seem very surprising. A competent board should have asked for legal and professional advice before taking a drastic step like this. Instead the board thought it was a boxing match and tried to deliver a knockout punch before the market closes with blunt language. This might be the most incompetent board for an organisation of this size.

>> A competent board should have asked for legal and professional advice... I will bite. How do you know they didn't?

Typically it would be framed amicably, without so much axe-grinding, particularly for public release. Even ChatGPT itself would have written a more balanced release, and advised against such shenanigans. I enjoy that irony.

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

#553

Post by uiberto »

We are a board for a company whose stated mission is to develop AI tools to better serve the needs of humanity. The CEO has secretly piloted the company towards alternate goals of profit. We fired him on Friday but think it was a mistake. Who knows. Anyways, how can we rehire him?

---

Rehiring a CEO whom you've recently fired is a delicate process, both from a legal and business standpoint. Here's a general approach you might consider:

1. *Board Meeting*: Convene a board meeting to discuss the decision to rehire the CEO. This should involve all key stakeholders to ensure transparency and agreement.

2. *Legal Considerations*: Consult with legal counsel to understand any legal implications or contractual issues arising from the initial termination and potential rehiring.

3. *Negotiation and Terms*: If the board agrees to proceed, you'll need to negotiate new terms with the CEO. This might include discussions about the future direction of the company, salary, and any conditions related to the rehire.

4. *Addressing the Underlying Issues*: It's important to address the reasons that led to the initial firing. This might involve setting clearer goals aligned with the company's mission, establishing better oversight, or implementing checks and balances.

5. *Communication*: Once an agreement is reached, communicate the decision to rehire the CEO to your employees, stakeholders, and possibly the public, depending on the nature of your company. This communication should be clear about the reasons for the reversal and the future direction of the company.

6. *Monitoring and Evaluation*: Finally, set up a system for regularly evaluating the CEO's performance against the company's mission and goals to prevent a recurrence of the previous issues.

Remember, the rehiring process should align with your company's bylaws and any relevant legal requirements. Transparency and clear communication throughout the process are crucial to maintain trust among your stakeholders.

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

#554

Post by LewisVerstappen »

dylan604 wrote: post #530
moralestapia wrote: post #246

RIP OpenAI, for real. And RIP @sama if he chooses to go back, no good could possibly come out of this.

Rarely does getting back together with an ex work out. You miss each other in the beginning thinking of only the good things, but very quickly you start to remember why you were exes to begin with.

That analogy doesn't make sense here since all the employees at OpenAI are extremely loyal to Sam. It's just the board that wanted him out.

And regardless of what happens here, everyone on the board is 100% getting fired.

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

#555

Post by newZWhoDis »

yathaid wrote: post #531
crop_rotation wrote: post #60

The board seems truly incompetent here and looking at the member list it doesn't seem very surprising. A competent board should have asked for legal and professional advice before taking a drastic step like this. Instead the board thought it was a boxing match and tried to deliver a knockout punch before the market closes with blunt language. This might be the most incompetent board for an organisation of this size.

>> A competent board should have asked for legal and professional advice... I will bite. How do you know they didn't?

>house collapses in 15mph wind

Why didn’t they hire a competent builder?

You:

>how do you know they weren’t? It could be pure happenstance! All the nails could… could have been defective! Or something! waves hands

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

#556

Post by baobabKoodaa »

no_wizard wrote: post #397
ilaksh wrote: 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…

Maybe. Or maybe they can profit differently going forward. Sam is not the reason OpenAI is gangbusters, its tech is. What I’m not hearing in any of this reporting is how Sam Altman is somehow the secret sauce. And it’s because he isn’t. This is “rules for thee but not for me”. He as a bad fit, 2/3 the board outed him, and investors are mad because they didn’t feel included. You know, like how they include employees i…

That's not what "fire fast" means. Altman lead the company for years; he was not fired fast.

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

#557

Post by discordance »

jimsimmons wrote: post #512
Satam wrote: post #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 look…

Insanely based take. Sam tries to sound smart while not really having any technical insight. He does a tremendous job with it though. One way to think about this is: at some point in the next few years we'll have a few hundred GPUs/TPUs that can provide the compute the compute used to train GPT3. This discovery was always going to happen. The question is if OpenAI made radical scaling possible unlike before. Answer t…

> This discovery was always going to happen.

It’s not clearly obvious that’s the case. In retrospect things always seem obvious, but that another party would have created GPT-3/4 is not.

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

#558

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

>One AI-focused venture capitalist noted that following the departure of Hoffman, OpenAI’s non-profit board lacked much traditional governance. “These are not the business or operating leaders you would want governing the most important private company in the world,” they said.

From https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/17/these-are... (linked in OP)

I'd be interested in a discussion of the merits of "traditional governance" here. Traditional private companies are focused on making a profit, even if that has negative side effects like lung cancer or global warming. If OpenAI is supposed to shepherd AGI for all humanity, what's the strongest case for including "traditional governance" type people on the board? Can we be explicit about the benefits they bring to the table, if your objective is humanitarian?

Personally I would be concerned that people who serve on for-profit boards would have the wrong instinct, of prioritizing profit over collective benefit...

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

#559

Post by whoknowsidont »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #103
twoodfin wrote: post #46

This suggests a plausible explanation that Altman was attempting to engineer the board’s expansion or replacement: After the events of the last 48 hours, could you blame him? In this scenario, it was a pure power struggle. The board believed they’d win by showing Altman the door, but it didn’t take long to demonstrate that their actual power to do so was limited to the de jure end of the spectrum.

Any talented engineer or scientist who actually wants to ship product AND make money would head over to Sam’s startup. Any investor who cares about making money would fund Sam’s startup as well. The way the board pulled this off really gave them no good outcome. They stand to lose talent AND investors AND customers. Half the people I know who use GPT in their work are wondering if it will be even worth paying for if…

>would head over to Sam’s startup

Why? I see a lot of hero-worship for Sam, but very little concrete facts about what he's done to make this a success.

And given his history, I'm inclined to believe he just got lucky.

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

#560

Post by chatmasta »

lucubratory wrote: post #442

It's insane to me how easily Sam's side can spin the board firing him for violating the company's Charter and then not backtracking at all as "Within 24 hours the board has come crawling back, I- er Sam Altman might deign to return if they grovel hard enough and I'm given complete control." This is really, really clearly incestuous tech media stuff as part of a pressure campaign. Sam is the darlin of tech media and h…

While this is an insightful perspective, it doesn't change the fact that the board is revealed as incompetent. Either they made a mistake in firing him and are now walking it back (while yielding so much leverage that Altman can condition his return on the resignation of everyone who voted to fire him), or they have such little credibility that some standard-practice media collusion has created sufficient pressure to change their optimal strategy, i.e. force their hand.

If they do nothing, then public perception harms their ability to raise further capital, and employees leave for Altman's new company. If they cave to the pressure (despite that being objectively the financially right decision), they lose their board seats and Sam comes back, proving they overplayed their hand when they fired him. They're basically in a lose/lose situation, even if this article is sourced from entirely biased and fabricated information. And that's exactly what reveals them as incompetent.

Their mistake was making a move while considering only the technicalities of their voting power, and ignoring the credibility they had to make it. Machiavelli is rolling in his grave...

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