OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman

Also, the paradox in the reactions to Sam Altman's firing is striking:

while there's surprise over it, the conversation here focuses mostly on its operational impact, overlooking the human aspect.

This oversight itself seems to answer why it happened – if the human element is undervalued and operations are paramount, then this approach not only explains the firing but also suggests that it shouldn't be surprising.

Another important question not discussed here: who sits on the board of OpenAI exactly and in full?

Another important aspect: The Orwellian euphemism used in the official announcement^0: “Leadership transition”. Hahaha :) Yes, I heard they recently had some "leadership transitions" in Myanmar, Niger and Gabon, too. OpenAI announces “leadership transition” is November 2023’s “Syria just had free and fair elections”

0: https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transiti...

I’ll be curious if Sama’s next company is American.

Greg Brockman @gdb

Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.

Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAI, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out.

We too are still trying to figure out exactly what happened. Here is what we know:

- Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon.

- At 12:19pm, Greg got a text from Ilya asking for a quick call. At 12:23pm, Ilya sent a Google Meet link. Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post.

- As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior.

The outpouring of support has been really nice; thank you, but please don’t spend any time being concerned. We will be fine. Greater things coming soon.

10:42 PM · Nov 18, 2023

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