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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

#741

Post by harrcliff0410 »

Aunche wrote: post #372
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could have filed formal complaints, mandated increased scrutiny, handed off Sam's responsibilities to other people, or threatened legal action. I think you fundamentally misunderstand the role of the board of directors. It's often been said that the board (of any company) has basically one job: to hire (and fire) the CEO. While that may be a slight exaggeration, the wisdom behind that quote is that things turn…

> the board (of any company) has basically one job: to hire (and fire) the CEO Yes. In a formal board meeting, not in an secretive one behind Altman and Brockman's back. That's what makes it seem more like a coup. > They're the board, who else would they file formal complaints to? Like I said in other comments. It's always useful to have a paper trail. > "Hand off Sam's responsibilities to other people"?? Again, any…

[dead]

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

#742

Post by hankman86 »

If true, then why is he still the CEO? Lying to the board is a big red flag. In particular when it is withholding material information.

The whole OpenAI company structure is suspect to say the least. Having a dishonest person at the helm does not help.

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

#743

Post by Centigonal »

breck wrote: post #613
Centigonal wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that you should never stop giving feedback, but if you have an advisory or managerial duty toward someone, and you don't take action when your feedback is being consistently ignored by that person, then when do you take action (if ever)?

> then when do you take action (if ever)? I think you _never_ take secretive action. You don't go behind someone's back. They should have said, "Sam, we think you are wrong, we think we are right, and we think you are not listening, so we are going to take this to the board." They should not have conspired. Don't conspire. Also, in my experience, in a situation like this where sides A and B see things differently, an…

I think this is a very reasonable stance for most situations.

IDK what the dynamics inside OpenAI are like. In nearly all scenarios, I would agree with you, but if sama is really a master manipulator like some people are saying, then some level of secrecy/conspiracy might have been necessary to escalate to the board without being pushed out of the company first.

Let's take an extreme hypothetical where Sam instructs you, an OpenAI exec, to take Action A, and says, "I'm a very influential person. If you don't do what I say or if you make me look bad, I'll use my connections to make sure you never work in the Valley again." Responding with "I disagree, and I'm going to go to the board about this" might be incompatible with future employment, especially if the board doesn't take your side. Going to the press might also be a disaster given sama's history of emerging unscathed from Worldcoin, his sister's allegations, etc. The best choice for most people is probably to just stay quiet and do as you're told. Later, when the board comes to you investigating claims of abusive behavior, you might share with them but request anonymity, because you know that Sam is indeed a very influential person; if the board decides not to fire him (or if they do and it doesn't work), you will be ruined.

In this situation, all the board can do without breaking anonymity is to say, "we have investigated and discovered incidences of abusive behavior, and for that we are removing you as CEO."

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

#744

Post by JimBright »

bmitc wrote: post #686
narrator wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can figure out which 90% we need when they are in seed stage you can become a billionaire venture capitalist. It's like someone spent their whole life searching a thousand volume library of where's Waldo books for a picture of Waldo and found him and told you where to find him and then you said, the guy is an idiot, I found Waldo right here and so could just about anyone!

That's not what I was talking about. What venture capitalists do is figure out which companies and products that they can market and sell. That doesn't say anything about what people need. People can be and are marketed and sold all sorts of things they don't need. The argument of the above commenter was that society somehow needs these companies as a sort of intrinsic need to live better lives. That's simply not tru…

I think you're conflating wants and needs. All you "need" is nutrition (food and water), air, and temperature regulation. It's reasonable to expand on that to include physiological needs like companionship, shelter and clothing. Sex can also be reasonably included as it is required for the propagation of the species. Everything else is a want. Who are we to dictate what people want to live a better life? What you want to live a better life is quite possibly different from what I want to lead a better life. Wouldn't you agree?

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

#745

Post by margalabargala »

ryukoposting wrote: post #739
margalabargala wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cool technology" here means things like dishwashers, or MRI machines, which pretty much strictly improve people's lives, not slightly better advertisement algorithms.

UNIX is pretty cool but Ken Thompson isn't an asshole (as far as I know).

I agree.

My point (which I communicated poorly) wasn't that assholes are necessary, but rather that there are reasonable definitions of "cool technology" which are an inherent virtue.

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

#746

Post by n2d4 »

jdminhbg wrote: post #328
light_triad wrote: post #191

The whole saga is an interesting case study for theoretical versus real power. 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. Also having one investor own half, plus the founders guiding the roadmap and having sway over key hires leaving is where the real power is…

> 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.

> all the value of the company can walk away if they don't like it

They really can't, because a majority of their compensation is in now-unreasonable amounts of OpenAI equity (because it was worth much less when it was granted). If employees decided to walk away, rendering their vested equity worthless, they wouldn't get anywhere near the same value of, say, Microsoft equity as a signing bonus to make it worth.

Any senior OpenAI employee with decent amounts of vested equity on low valuations has strong financial incentives to stick with the company, and also strong financial incentives to convince others to stick with the company.

Some more thoughts from back when employees "threatened" to leave: https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-employees-did-not-wan...

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

#747

Post by NikolaNovak »

zooq_ai wrote: post #727
NikolaNovak wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I assume this is a troll comment, as nobody could hold views THAT extreme and be THAT snidey in real life (I assume/hope :O )

If you a rule follower that follows rules just for the sake of following rules, you wouldn't understand. But, if you think in first principles, humans need to stop because we have only two eyes that can look at only one direction and can never simultaneously compute what speed the other cars are traveling. Of course we have to stop and give enough buffer for 0% accident probability. A FSD vehicle will have 8+ cameras…

Oh, you are coming through crystal clear, thank you :-)

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

#748

Post by za3faran »

WalterBright wrote: post #346
thaumaturgy wrote: post #277

Earlier 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…

Societies like the Islamic society are based on both morals and rights, and have done very well in the past before post WWI colonization and divide & concquer, which continues to this day. For example, Islam is generally pro free markets, with red lines that protect the society (e.g. no usury, no lying, respect individual property, etc.).

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

#749

Post by CPLX »

WalterBright wrote: post #736
CPLX wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and we also didn't have the fucking insanity of step-up-basis and our current approach of literally not taxing the accumulation of wealth, ever, for those at the top of the pyramid. We also had unions. We can trade examples all day but the fact is that the tax burden on the very wealthy has plummeted and income inequality has skyrocketed. Those are broad measurable facts. Things suck more as a result. I'm not a…

The step-up basis happens when you die. But then you get hit with a 40% federal estate tax and a 20% Washington estate tax on that stepped up basis. Since you're not young, if you'd invested a modest sum in AMZN in the 1990s you'd be a millionaire several times over today. Same for MSFT. And Apple. How does other people having more than you take away from you?

1. As I’m sure you well know the estate tax exemption is measured in 8 figures at this point, so no, you don’t “pay 40%” to the federal government. And that’s leaving aside the fact that the dead person can make billions in capital gains, spend it wildly (via loans) and never pay a fucking dime of taxes on it at all. Nobody ever does, that’s the basis issue. It’s a fucking travesty that it’s the current law.

2. I’m rich. Believe it or not some of us actually give a shit what kind of society we are building.

The real question you should be asking is how does other people having less than you within a deeply unfair system not take away from your happiness.

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

#750

Post by bmitc »

WalterBright wrote: post #732
bmitc wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that really has anything to do with the discussion and is completely melodramatic, as someone else mentioned. However, we have indeed ended up in a hell-hole. Again, as someone else mentioned, the U.S. in the early 20th century rose up against the capitalist thinking and companies coming out of the industrial revolution and implemented socialist policies, progressive tax structures, and aggressive anti-trust…

Education is run by the government in the US, as is healthcare. It's ironic that you blame capitalism for that. Infant mortality rate is indeed higher than the US. I dug into it a few years back. It seems that the definition of infant mortality is different among different nations. The US has the most expansive view of it - more specifically, we try to save preemies more aggressively than any other nation, and the fa…

> Education is run by the government in the US, as is healthcare. It's ironic that you blame capitalism for that.

No it's not ironic, and it's also not completely correct. There's no point in having a conversation with lack of good faith statements like this. For starters, education is underfunded, and it's leached on to by corporations. Big surprise it doesn't do well. There's also lack of social support structures surrounding our education, so it's no surprise that the educational system is overwhelmed with trying to be too much while also underfunded.

And healthcare is not ran by the government in the U.S. It is almost completely privatized, so your statement is an outright untruth and purely bizarre. I have no idea what you're agenda is, but there clearly is one.

> Wealth equality is a goal of communism.

Wrong again.

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