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

OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

851–860 of 946 posts

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#851

Post by rossdavidh »

resolutebat wrote: post #318
rossdavidh wrote: post #300

So, none of this sounds like it could be the real reason Altman was fired. This leaves people saying it was a "coup", which still doesn't really answer the question. Why did Altman get fired, really? Obviously, it's for a reason they can't say. Which means, there is something bad going on at the company, like perhaps they are short of cash or something, that was dire enough to convince them to fire the CEO, but which…

Banks have strict cash reserve requirements that are externally audited. OpenAI does not, and more to the point, they're both swimming in money and could easily get more if they wanted. (At least until last week, that is.)

Rumor has it, they had been trying to get more, and failing. No audited records of that kind of thing, of course, so could be untrue. But Altman and others had publicly said that they were attempting to get Microsoft to invest more, and he was courting sovereign wealth funds for an AI (though non-OpenAI) chip related venture, and ChatGPT had a one-day partial outage due to "capacity" constraints, which is odd if your biggest backer is a cloud company. It all sounds like they are running short on money, long before they get to profitability. Which would have been fine up until about a year ago, because someone with Altman's profile could easily get new funding for a buzz-heavy project like ChatGPT. But times are different, now...

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#852

Post by wilde »

tremon wrote: post #845
wilde wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irresponsible thing is to not explain yourself and assume everyone around you has no agency.

I don't follow. If the irresponsible thing is to not explain themselves, why would the lawyers tell them to be quiet?

To minimize legal risk to their client, which is not always the most responsible thing to do.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#853

Post by robertlagrant »

whelp_24 wrote: post #779
robertlagrant wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is an overly simplistic look, and disregards a lot of history where, unsurprisingly, the reason there was wealth redistribution wasn't "innovation" but government policy The point is that wealth and power aren't interchangeable. You're right that government bureaucrats have actual power, including that to take people's stuff. But you've not realised that that actual power means the rich people don't have power…

Wealth is control of resources, which is power. The way to change power is through force that's why you need swords to remove kings and to remove stacks of gold, see assinations, war, the U.S..

You need swords to remove kings because they combined power and economy. All potential tyrannies do so: monarchy, socialism, fascism, etc. That's why separating power into the state and economy into the market gets good results.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#855

Post by alxfoster »

Lets be honest here: this article seems as if it were drafted by Altman himself. It's incredibly biased and screams pro-Altman agenda. I would be very surprised if " 90% " of any company could agree on anything, including the removal of the CEO. What is clear is that there were massive conflicts of interest and that the board probably did their job in preserving the mission of the organization (they sure as heck are not operating as agents of MS). The naive fanboy blind support of management here should be concerning to any rational objective actor who understands fiduciary duty and the bigger picture.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#856

Post by trinsic2 »

mcv wrote: post #717
sigmoid10 wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, they could have just come out with that fact and everyone in the alignment camp and people who memed the whole super-commercialized "Open" AI thing would be on their side. But the fact that they haven't means that either there was no greater-good mission related reason for ousting Sam or the board is just completely incompetent at communication. Either way, they need to go and make room for people who c…

That is a very good point. Why wouldn't they come out and say it if the reason is Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia? Why make up weak fake reasons? On the other hand, if it's really just about a power struggle, why not use Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia as the fake reason? Why come up with some weak HR excuses?

Maybe the board is being prevented or compelled not to disclose that information? Given the limited information about the why, This feels like a reverse psychology situation to obfuscate the public's perception to further some premeditated plan.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#857

Post by ameister14 »

arrosenberg wrote: post #556
jelling wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly is the problem here? Is a non-profit expected to exclusively help impoverished communities or something? Yes. Yes and more yes. That is why, at least in the U.S., we have given non-profits exemptions from taxation. Because they are supposed to be improving society, not profiting from it.

> That is why, at least in the U.S., we have given non-profits exemptions from taxation. That's your belief . The NFL, Heritage Foundation and Scientology are all non-profits and none of them improve society; they all profit from it. (For what its' worth, I wish the law was more aligned with your worldview)

No - that's the reasoning behind the law.

You appear to be struggling with the idea that the law as enacted does not accomplish the goal it was created to accomplish and are working backwards to say that because it is not accomplishing this goal that couldn't have been why it was enacted.

Non-profits are supposed to benefit their community. Could the law be better? Sure, but that doesn't change the purpose behind it.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#858

Post by rightbyte »

bnralt wrote: post #828
rightbyte wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will I mean, there seem to be this cult following around Sam Altman on HN and Twitter. But do the common user care like at all? What sane user would want a shitcoin CEO in charge of a product they depend on?

I’ve said this before, but it’s quite possible to think that Altman isn’t great, and that he’s better than the board and his replacement. The new CEO of OpenAI said he’d rather Nazi’s take over the world forever than risk AI alignment failure, and said he couldn’t understand how anyone could think otherwise[1]. I don’t think people appreciate how far some of these people have gone off the deep end. [1] https://twitte…

He gotta be insane? I guess what he is trying to say is that those who want to selfhost open AIs are worse than Nazis? E.g. Llama? What is up with these people and pushing for corporate overlord only AIs.

The OpenAI folks seem to be hallucinating to rationalize why the "Open" is rather closed.

Organizations can't pretend to believe nonsense. They will end up believing it.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#859

Post by tiahura »

jacquesm wrote: post #765
mcv wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very good point. Why wouldn't they come out and say it if the reason is Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia? Why make up weak fake reasons? On the other hand, if it's really just about a power struggle, why not use Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia as the fake reason? Why come up with some weak HR excuses?

Because anything they say that isn't in line with the rules governing how boards work may well open them up to - even more - liability. So they're essentially hoping that nobody will sue them but if they are sued that their own words can't be used as evidence against them. That's why lawyers usually tell you to shut up, because even if the court of public opinion needs to be pacified somehow the price of that may wel…

If it was all about liability, The press release wouldn’t have said anything about honesty. The press release could’ve just said the parting was due to a disagreement about the path forward for openAI.

As a lawyer, I wonder to what extent lawyers were actually consulted and involved with the firing.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#860

Post by trinsic2 »

twic wrote: post #737
rtpg wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is. The general idea of "Altman was signing a bunch of business deals without board approval, was told to stop by the board, he said he would, then proceeded to not stop and continue the behavior"... that feels like the juicy bit (if that is in fact what was happening, I know nothing). This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are…

> The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is This is exactly it, and it's astounding that so many people are going in other directions. Either this is true, and Altman has been a naughty boy, or it's false, and the board are lying about him. Either would be the starting point for understanding the whole situation.

The announcement that he is acted to get a position with Microsoft creates doubt about his motives.
Post reply on HN