Somebody has to give us the inside politics that led to this public embarrassment! It's so juicy! I can't wait to hear how this got so far, and who the players were. What was the disagreement?
They've GOT to let us have it all! It's too good!
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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They probably had trouble in their polycule
One or more people on the board were upset with Sam pushing Open AI towards a "for profit" business model because they wanted to be all altruistic and not paywall things. But they were completely ignorant of the expensive reality of their tech (look up the tons of articles about Open AI burning through money) and after firing Sam, likely got a rude awakening from people in the company showing them the books. Once they realized their out of business in less than a year if they don't monetize things, suddenly Sam's ideas aren't so bad and they know they just fucked the entire company over.
That doesn't make very much sense.
Yes, the board members who are into Effective Altruism are undoubtedly a piece of the puzzle. But everything you outline isn't just common corporate knowledge, it's basically well-documented public record.
And remember that this is a Board that Altman effectively hand-picked. He did not appoint a host of dum-dums to oversee him.
Whatever happened, there is waaaay more to this than anyone has been told. At this point it's all speculation, but I think it's pretty safe to assume it's not just a case of "we didn't know it was expensive" or "we didn't know how popular Sam was".
I really can't see the board members not being aware of what's on their own books.
Anyway the statement the board made was that he wasn't being candid with them, well what does that mean? If he'd been pushing for profit and they didn't want to go in that direction they wouldn't use the word candid
This is like getting wasted and breaking up with someone because they weren't a hit at the holiday party, then realizing you were the problem, and trying to apologize your way back into the relationship.
I honestly think the board had a second to think and said "Oh, shit...he's not really good at anything, but we're still running the OSS version of all this shit with minor changes, and he's just going to flip that into a competing company and fuck us over."
Duh. This turd is the only reason it's a for-profit company now, and he knows it's worth next to nothing in a year.
I really hope he doesn't go back so we can see it play out like you describe. Love seeing asshats like these get their due.
Or maybe he comes back for gobs more compensation while still developing/contributing to a competitor. I'm sure there are ways around non-competes.
Or just Altman and the other folks startup their own and bury these idiots. Gonna be fun to watch.
Bro why did they fire him then? What changed in their minds?
Outlook not so good.
That’s why I use Thunderbird instead.
That's why they fired him over Google Meet
This is the best summary I could come up with:
OpenAI appears "optimistic" that it can reel its ousted CEO Sam Altman back to the company just a day after he was suddenly pushed out of his role on Friday, The Information reported.
Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote in a memo sent to staff late Saturday night that the company remained "optimistic" that it could bring back Altman and several senior employees who left in light of the CEO's abrupt exit, sources familiar with the situation told the tech news outlet.
Among those senior figures included Greg Brockman, OpenAI's co-founder and president, who announced on X that he was quitting hours after Altman departed.
Three senior researchers — Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Madry, Szymon Sidor — also had resigned, The Information reported earlier.
Less than a day after Altman, who co-founded the AI startup in 2015, was ousted, investors pushed to convince OpenAI's board to reverse the decision, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Altman's return to OpenAI could potentially mean an impending shake-up of the company's current board members and governance.
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