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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

#841

Post by AndrewKemendo »

dang wrote: post #834
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #775

I feel bad for dang in all this Is like the worst situation for him where despite there really being no causal connection between hacker news and Sam Altman in any kind of functional way, the reality of the connections and the Zeitgeist of the this moment, makes this topic continue to rise to the top and has dominated over the last, let’s say a couple weeks In an odd way because of how close this community is to all…

Thanks, but this isn't the worst situation. If you want to feel bad for me I can mention some things that are much worse! This is an ordinary case of two regular phenomena: (a) a major ongoing topic; and (b) negative stories about anything YC-related. We deal with them as follows: (a) We deal with a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT) [1] by downweighting follow-ups [2] and reserving frontpage slots for stories with Significan…

> It's fairly rare that we get a MOT which is also negative about something YC-related. Under such conditions we're going to get complaints no matter what we do: if we apply the normal principle of downweighting follow-ups, people will accuse us of censoring the story; but if we don't, people will complain about the frontpage being filled with follow-ups.

Yeah that’s really all I was pointing to, so maybe not “worst” but rare and a “no win” for sure

Appreciate you holding it down

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

#842

Post by gfourfour »

remram wrote: post #838
gfourfour wrote: post #776

To be honest, my bias is against boards, especially non-profit boards who have no skin in the game and often an idealistic view that clashes with operational realities. The case of Altman seems to be a “where there’s smoke” thing to an extent, but I also am not inclined to trust the board over the employees who do seem to like him. Insofar as he steered OAI to be a consumer product company rather than a research inst…

"trust" is a funny word here. I trust the employees to be good employees, interested in the future of the companies and their jobs. I don't believe for a second that employees would put the non-profit's mission above that. It has nothing to do with trustworthiness.

I’ve seen boards hinder nonprofits from executing on the mission plenty of times, usually out of ego or general fecklessness.

I wouldn’t assume that boards care about the mission more than the employees. Employees are the ones signing up to implement it, board members are often just in it for status and are total dilettantes.

I think in this case there’s a lot of signs pointing to the board feeling that their status was threatened more than anything. If their reasoning is that releasing ChatGPT without their permission was “unsafe,” give me a break.

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

#843

Post by fnordpiglet »

fastball wrote: post #825
insane_dreamer wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand how boards operate, especially in this case. It was the board of the OpenAI __non-profit__, of which Microsoft was _not_ an investor. In this case, their fiduciary duty was not to their shareholders, but rather to the company charter.

It's mostly dysfunctional boards that aren't doing their job I don't understand. You can talk about fiduciary duty all you want, but when you're the board of a "non-profit" that has a wholly-owned for-profit subsidiary and you don't seem to know what the hell that subsidiary is doing on a number of dimensions, you're either A. there for appearances only or B. terrible at your job. Like, is your argument really "you d…

Or, C. Actively being subverted by the leadership of the subsidiary and thus need to replace that leadership to replace it with a transparent leader.

People lie and cover things up all the time from oversight bodies like boards. The board isn’t some god like entity that either knows all or is incompetent. They’re a collection of humans operating off the information given to them. Once they realize the information is erroneous or incomplete it’s often their duty to replace that leadership. And if they believe further they can’t trust the principals involved these things are often done in secret.

Finally the for profit nature of the subsidiary is entirely irrelevant. The board is a non profit board which has an entirely different responsibility set and accountability than a for profit board, and the subsidiary being for profit doesn’t change the nature of their duty in the least - in fact to preserve their non profit status they have to be -extra- careful with how they treat business related to the for profit subsidiary to ensure a conflict of interest doesn’t invert the relationship between for profit and non profit missions. Informing outside investors of non profit board governance decisions likely inverts that relationship and jeopardizes the non profits charter.

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

#844

Post by _giorgio_ »

bb88 wrote: post #788
Retric wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean pass something like that around? No. I’d seriously consider quitting on the spot if my boss at any place I’ve worked in the past asked me to sign something like that. Not signing isn’t quite the same thing as quitting, but there’s a clear implication not doing so would seriously damage any long term prospects at the company.

"Hi this is Karen from HR. Is there a reason you didn't sign the loyalty oath on Tuesday of last week? I'm just checking in to make sure everything is okay with you at Altruistic Capital Inc."

People make up stupid answers to avoid answering.

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

#845

Post by MyFedora »

stale2002 wrote: post #837
MyFedora wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then why did the board re-hire Sam Altman? A non-profit board should want a CEO befitting a non-profit company in my eyes, not one that promotes a for-profit culture. I see losing employees with for-profit motives as a desirable side effect of firing Sam Altman.

> I see losing employees with for-profit motives as a desirable side effect of firing Sam Altman. That would shutdown the entire company. And I would hope that wasn't their goal. > So then why did the board re-hire Sam Altman? Presumably so that the entire company wouldn't be shutdown.

> That would shutdown the entire company.

Yeah... and? OpenAI is pretty much a for-profit company now. Why shouldn't a non-profit board pull the plug on a non-profit turned for-profit? Isn't that a part of their job?

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

#846

Post by raymond_goo »

EA-3167 wrote: post #55
hrdwdmrbl wrote: post #46

This telling by Toner has the ring of truth to it over the reason for Sam's ouster. It matches. Whatever I think of Sam personally, I would likely have done the same thing in her shoes. The CEO lying to and deceiving the board multiple times is a pretty serious red line.

It's also a similar reason that Sam was fired from Y Combinator. None of this should be new, it's just when there's money on the line people's memories get as fuzzy as their morals.

He didn't get fired: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1796107666265108940

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

#847

Post by raymond_goo »

sixQuarks wrote: post #73
EA-3167 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a similar reason that Sam was fired from Y Combinator. None of this should be new, it's just when there's money on the line people's memories get as fuzzy as their morals.

I didn’t know he was fired from y combinator, what were the details?

He didn't get fired: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1796107666265108940

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

#848

Post by raymond_goo »

snowwrestler wrote: post #52

Kind of ironic that people are jumping in here to defend Sam Altman on the message board of Y Combinator, which also fired him from an executive leadership role for similar reasons.

Not true: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1796107666265108940

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

#849

Post by stale2002 »

MyFedora wrote: post #845
stale2002 wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see losing employees with for-profit motives as a desirable side effect of firing Sam Altman. That would shutdown the entire company. And I would hope that wasn't their goal. > So then why did the board re-hire Sam Altman? Presumably so that the entire company wouldn't be shutdown.

> That would shutdown the entire company. Yeah... and? OpenAI is pretty much a for-profit company now. Why shouldn't a non-profit board pull the plug on a non-profit turned for-profit? Isn't that a part of their job?

> Yeah... and?

And then it can't use that money on its mission because it shut down.

> Isn't that a part of their job?

No, it isn't. Their job would be to use the income that they received from that part of the business and spend it on their mission.

There are all sorts of non profits that operate in a similar way.

In fact acting sustainably is generally a positive for non-profits because it means that you can be more effective for longer without having to rely on donations.

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

#850

Post by bmitc »

WalterBright wrote: post #753
bmitc wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people are unhappy when they discover that a middle class lifestyle requires work. I'm just going to stop responding, but I have to call this out. This statement shows a complete disregard and a total lack of empathy for those in the lower middle class and below in the United States. You need to take a step back and understand just how hard people have it in this country. For example, read this: https://www.nc…

I grew up in a lower middle class family. Here's the formula for middle class and higher success in America: 1. stay in school 2. pay attention in school, learn the material 3. don't do drugs 4. don't do crimes 5. go to college (loans are readily available) 6. pick a major that pays well It's not rocket science. Your cite says that the differences in infant mortality shrink considerably when taking into account diffe…

The formula is: be white, be male (most of the time), be born middle class.
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