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Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
641–650 of 854 posts
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> amoral wealth-hoarders They're not hoarding wealth. They don't have any Scrooge McDuck cash faults. Their money is all invested , i.e. put to work creating things that people want. > moralists ... capitalists History shows us that societies based on morals (religious, ideological) fare extremely poorly compared with societies based on rights (free markets). Like it or not, for a large, prosperous society you must h…
>They're not hoarding wealth. They don't have any Scrooge McDuck cash faults. Their money is all invested, i.e. put to work creating things that people want.
The Panama Papers showed this to be a myth. The ultra rich are in fact extracting wealth and hoarding it in tax havens.
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#643> She said, "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." Did they not at least have a briefing packet or something prepared to give to major investors (ie, Microsoft) day-of if they were so worried about leaks that they couldn't get the major investors (ie, their own…
Major investors aren't the board's boss in this case because OpenAI is a nonprofit. Microsoft is incentivized to act against the goals nonprofit's charter (and in fact they did in this case).
“Non profit”
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#644Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s so much weirder than that. Reportedly, Greg Brockman’s wife begged him in tears to change his mind. Ilya presided over their wedding.
Source?
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#645Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bad analogy. Sam has no stock in OpenAI or any sort of formal controlling interest. His power is solely informal: his own talents and abilities and the loyalty of the other employees. Regardless of the truth of the matters, the episode is a perfect example of the limits of formal authority and how informal or "soft" power can be even more effective in shaping events
Did you read the article which points out specifically that he is financially incentivized?
Only in the innovation fund thing, not the company at large (going solely off the article)
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#646Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Altman is neglecting and being opaque about AI safety, as Toner claims, then the board should appoint someone to lead this effort and be fully transparent with them. No, that is absolutely not the role of the board (and I mean any board, not just OpenAI's), and that's the point I was trying to make. It is the CEO's role to define the org structure of the company. If the board feels that this structure doesn't me…
It's not typical for the board to directly intervene with the affairs for the company, but it's still far less unprecedented than making the most important decision in their history while deliberately excluding a third of the members. For example, a year before Yahoo fired Marissa Mayer, the board appointed a committee to explore "strategic alternatives" with management. https://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-…
As the other comment said, the strategic alternatives plan had nothing to do with firing Mayer. It was specifically about how they could unload their Alibaba equity without triggering a huge tax bill.
But regardless, the board had six members. Altman was actively trying to grow the board (and would presumably add loyal allies), and had previously tried to kick Toner off the board. So just by sheer numbers it's obvious they had to move quietly before they acted. And you saying this is "unprecedented" is just weird - CEOs are fired with little warning all the time, and if they also have board seats, the board members who want to fire them usually figure out if they have enough support before hand.
I think the thing we're probably agreeing on is that the board just handled the communication abysmally. I don't know how they thought they could fire Altman without a detailed explanation, especially to their partners like MS.
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#647Earlier quoted context omitted.
You had the answer there before you dismissed it -- the board agreed to bring Sam Altman back before resigning because of massive pressure campaign that involved 90%+ of employees threatening to resign, and Microsoft (which has OpenAI's IP rights) offering to hire them all immediately. This included the company's key leadership. The organization was unraveling overnight. This was far past the tipping point of "a few…
I answered that scenario though. I'm fine, as a board, letting employees who want to hold the company hostage over a CEO that the board fired walk. The board's major mistake was not communicating why he was let go. My guess is that the likely reason why employees threatened to go was that they felt Altman had the best chances of making the for-profit arm's shares skyrocket. As a non-profit company's board, I'd be fin…
>I'd be fine letting those people walk out the front door along with the CEO that was just fired.
Guess you'd be fine being the board over a company that now only consists of a board. Thumbs up.
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#648Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would not mindlessly think you know how everything went down just by a few articles.
That argument flows in both directions. Why defend the guy if you don't know "how everything went down"?
The comment doesn’t indicate a defence of Altman although I’m defending him in my other posts because I usually give people benefit of the doubt
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#649Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being skeptical about various possibly biased stories from involved parties would mean not accepting any as true. Where is the conclusion? The burden of proof is usually on the person who brings a claim in a dispute. In contrast, the assumption of guilt based on the statement of an ex-board member is a conclusion.
>Being skeptical about various possibly biased stories from involved parties would mean not accepting any as true. Party A accused party B of being a liar. Party B did not respond. In order to defend party B, you need to accuse party A of lying. Do you not see the flaw in that response? >The burden of proof is usually on the person who brings a claim in a dispute. Only in a criminal trial. There is no assumption of i…
This sounds like entitlement, Altman cannot respond to every attack and satisfy people that assumes he’s guilt if he doesn’t reply
Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
to put a yet finer point on it, Microsoft owns the infrastructure, and can afford to throw vast sums of money at the researchers to get them hired, if needed, assuming the GOOG or other big players don't get at them first.