> So what was the point of this whole drama, and why couldn't you have settled like this adults?
Altman was trying to remove one of the board members before he was forced out. Looks like he got his way in the end, but I'm going to call Altman the primary instigator because of that.
His side was also the "we'll nuke the company unless you resign" side.
His side was also "700 regular employees support this", which is pretty unusual as most people don't care about their CEO at all. I am not related to OpenAI at all, but given the choice of "favorite of all employees" vs "fire people with no warning then refuse to give explanation why even under pressure" I know which side I root for.
Looking back, Altman's ace in hand was the tender offer from Thrive. Idk anyone at OpenAI, but all the early senior personnel backed him with vehemence. If the leaders hand't championed him strongly, I doubt you get 90% of the company to commit to leaving.
I'm sure some of those employees were easily going to make $10m+ in the sale. That's a pretty great motivation tool.
Overall, I do agree with you. The board could not justify their capricious decision making and refused to elaborate. They should've brought him back on Sunday instead of mucking around. OpenAI existing is a good thing.
No idea what these 700 employees were thinking. They probably had little knowledge of what truly went down other than “my CEO was fired unfairly” and rushed to the rescue.
I think the board should have been more transparent on why they made the decision to fire Sam.
Or perhaps these employees only cared about their AI work and money? The foundation would be perceived as the culprit against them.
Really sad there’s no clarity from the old board disclosed. Hope one day we will know.
I wonder how much more transparent they can really be. I know that when firing a "regular" employee, you basically never tell everyone all the details for legal CYA reasons. When your firing someone worth half a billion dollars, I expect the legal fears are magnified.
But that's the difference, the CEO is not a regular employee. If a board of directors wants to be trusted and taken seriously it can't just fire the CEO and say "I'm sorry we can't say why, that's private information".
That is one HUGE grain of salt considering 1/ it's Blind 2/ Even in the same thread there is another poster saying the exact opposite thing (i.e. no peer pressure)
Also, all the stuff they started doing with the hearts and cryptic messages on Twitter (now X) was a bit ... cult-y?. I wouldn't doubt there was a lot of manipulation behind all that, even from @sama itself.
So, there is goes, it seems that there's a big chance now that the first AGI will land on the hands of a group with the antics of teenagers. Interesting timeline.
The 700 employees also have significant financial incentive to want Altman to stay. If he moved to a competitor all the shine would follow. They want the pay-day (I don't blame them), but take with a grain of salt what the employees want in this case.
Altman was trying to remove one of the board members before he was forced out. Looks like he got his way in the end, but I'm going to call Altman the primary instigator because of that.
His side was also the "we'll nuke the company unless you resign" side.