Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 854 posts

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

#631

Post by nradov »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #562
mike_hearn wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Shotwell didn't create SpaceX, define its mission, establish its products, create Starlink or recruit the core team. Musk did all of that and tons more as well. It's fascinating how nobody was making this claim of a non-technical Musk up until the moment he stopped being loyal to one particular wing of US politics. Now we see a concerted effort to diminish his achievements. Do you people really think this wil…

It’s not his politics but his takeover and self-sabotage of Twitter. I think most people when they get that much wealth and power turn into assholes because they think they are indestructible (and in a way they are).

Why does anyone here care what happens to Twitter? It's just another social network. We have lots of them. Even if Elon Musk bought it just to burn it down, so what? Anyone who cares can build a replacement.

And as a casual Twitter/X user who doesn't give a damn about Musk one way or the other, I don't see the sabotage. The web site and mobile app seem to be working fine. Community Notes is great. I understand that advertising revenue is down but that has no impact on users.

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

#632

Post by gwern »

cma wrote: post #274
bmitc wrote: post #86

What is still bizarre is how the board brought him back. I just don't understand that from any angle. It is very clear that he lied and schemed. So why was there any issue? He had no power once fired. If another company wants to hire him, fine. If he wants to make platitudes on Twitter, who cares? Employees threatened to leave? Let them. I imagine many of them wouldn't, and if they did, you could just rehire and find…

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.

Which should have been a bluff (board members typically have "director's insurance" to cover exactly this scenario - trying to control a company by threatening to pierce the corporate veil and sue board members individually) but shows you what sort of tactics were being employed by the Altman side. cf. Sutskever's flipping

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

#633

Post by azinman2 »

Log_out_ wrote: post #626
azinman2 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile the competitors are failing. He’s doing something right that’s beyond just car salesman.

In the realm of invisible monopolies and quasi-state owned the privately owned individual is only half blind.

What does that even mean? Your structural setting changed your success potential? China would disagree.

Besides… Blue origin? Boeing? These are not state owned or “invisible” yet are failing.

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

#634

Post by lotsofpulp »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #628
lotsofpulp wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of California is that there are no non competes, for anyone, ever. It is a very pro employee policy, hence attractive to the best and brightest.

Good to see someone positive about California, given all of the politically-motivated negativity. It's a great state for many reasons. I mentioned non-competes as one of a universe of things that makes this unusual; including its original non-profit status becoming substantially for-profit, and the apparent ease with which MS can now gut the supposedly controlling non-profit and walk away with everything. And, I'm gu…

I am not clear about the intent of your comment. People should be free to sell their labor to whoever they want. And people should be able to buy labor from whoever they want.

All businesses at all times are subject to losing their employees to another employer who is willing to pay enough for them.

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

#635

Post by JohnFen »

fastball wrote: post #133
akozak wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen the "coup" framing a lot I just don't see how that's justified. They're the board of directors! Hiring and firing the CEO is core to the job (as is maintaining mission alignment, in the nonprofit world).

I think the "coup" framing is supported at least by Helen Toner's claims in this article. > "We were very careful, very deliberate about who we told, which was essentially almost no one in advance, other than obviously our legal team and so that's kind of what took us to to November 17." If that doesn't sound like a secret coup, I don't know what does. Like, yes, it is their job to hire and fire the CEO so it's not r…

A "coup" is a usurpation of the existing power structure. This was the power structure exercising its legitimate power. It's not even remotely similar to a coup. That the board held its hand close to its chest doesn't enter into it and wasn't improper in any case.

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

#636

Post by pdonis »

hoseja wrote: post #434
pdonis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying is not "outsmarting", it's lying. As for "holding back the organization", if we're talking about existential risk, I want them to be held back. These people have no business being stewards of any technology that might be an existential risk.

There is no existential risk. Read less pulp scifi.

> There is no existential risk.

According to Altman and the rest of the OpenAI board, there is. They are the ones sounding the alarm, so they should be judged by the appropriate ethical standards.

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

#637

Post by pdonis »

tptacek wrote: post #323
pdonis wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is all just business, right? Not according to Sam Altman, or for that matter the other OpenAI board members who have been involved in this whole kerfluffle. They all say AI is an existential risk, and OpenAI is necessary to mitigate that risk. In other words, they themselves have told us to judge them by a much higher ethical standard than "just business". And all of them (not just Altman) have failed when jud…

OK. Sure. But if you're disinclined to hold businesses to higher standards than the norms of business, is there some other argument that would be persuasive about Altman's obligation during the board ouster debacle?

> if you're disinclined to hold businesses to higher standards than the norms of business

The only reason to be so disinclined in the case of OpenAI would be that you're sure their existential risk claims are wrong. If that's the case, then I suppose you could just shrug your shoulders and ignore the whole kerfluffle, at least as long as you have no skin in the game. I personally still think the conduct of everyone involved has been childish and unprofessional, but if we take existential risk off the table, then the issue is just that the norms of business in our current culture are childish and unprofessional, which is disappointing, but has no simple fix.

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

#638

Post by zaat »

sudosysgen wrote: post #618
zaat wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural and legal rights are well established terms that are being used, discussed and evaluated since ancient times. The term natural right precede our discovery of evolution by 2 millennia. Whether the right to property is natural right or not is a separate point and debatable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_right... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_property

The term natural right since ancient times was a religious construct that has little or nothing to do with the modern, post-Renaissance understanding of the term, so tracing a lineage here is a definitional error. In any case, what a natural right is isn't (and cannot be) a well established term, and indeed the rise in atheism is a fundamental threat to the doctrine, as most all ideas of natural law have to rely on a…

God is of very little help (here), as pointed by Plato/Socrates in the Uthyphro dilemma. The naturalistic fallacy is not limited to natural rights, as Hume's is-ought is applicable to legal rights just the same - you can't logically deduce from the fact that there are laws that mandate rights a conclusion that one ought to abide by them.

Natural or universal rights does not require theism. Robert Nozick is famous proponent of the secular based position that property is a natural right.

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

#639

Post by mikeryan »

jdminhbg wrote: post #329
mikeryan wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not good form to bad mouth someone you’ve fired. They did, in fact, release a statement which aligns (in PR speak) with what Toner is claiming now. Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his abil…

What they didn't realize is that they were going to have to convince the rank-and-file employees of that. Without a communication strategy to do that, they had basically no leverage.

I agree with this 100%

I even said so at the time.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372451#38373194

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

#640

Post by jdminhbg »

habitue wrote: post #381
jdminhbg wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On paper the board has the power and it’s their job to monitor and hire/fire the execs. But they’re dependent on the execs for info. It's way worse for the OpenAI board position in this case, because the company is basically just an assemblage of researchers, engineers, and Microsoft Azure credits. They can replace the CEO if they want, but all the value of the company can walk away if they don't like it.

> the company is basically just an assemblage of and . They can replace the CEO if they want, but all the value of the company can walk away if they don't like it. This is generally true of any company

OpenAI is substantially different from other companies in that the capital part is almost totally ephemeral (the Azure credits). Amazon employees can’t just walk across the street and start a new company because they’d be leaving all the warehouses and trucks behind.
Post reply on HN