Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI, according to new testimony(www.theverge.com)
52 pointsby paladin3141593 months ago3 comments
  • timmg3 months ago
    Hopefully Aaron Sorkin will write a screenplay about this sometime in the next decade.
    • keeganpoppen3 months ago
      im guessing it’s no more than two years away
    • neumann3 months ago
      Yes please. Or Jesse armstrong and Adam McKay
  • kittikitti3 months ago
    I don't think Sam Altman should have been fired even after reading this. It's definitely bad behavior but I was expecting something more significant. The consequences don't match the crime.
    • rifty3 months ago
      “All four of us who fired him came to the conclusion that we just couldn’t believe things that Sam was telling us, and that’s just a completely unworkable place to be in as a board — especially a board that is supposed to be providing independent oversight over the company, not just helping the CEO to raise more money.”

      I think I have to disagree here because they talk about loss of trust. Loss of trust is enough when deciding who you want to work associate with. Firing seems steep, but when working with someone feels forever untenable, your options are really you or them exiting. There's not really an in-between option to balance the response for how much the issue crossed the line of trust when you don't see it coming back.

      Maybe they shouldn't have lost total trust at Sam's behaviour. But personally I'd lean towards it being a pretty normal response from people existing in the environment itself; whom are at the time feeling the active shift effect Sam was having on the power balance to their detriment.

      • Atreiden3 months ago
        > especially a board that is supposed to be providing independent oversight over the company

        This is an important point. OpenAI is a nonprofit who's stated mission is to ensure that AI benefits all of humanity. Overseeing the business entity that exists under it's umbrella, and ensuring that the actions it takes are in accordance with that mission, is THE critical component of the boards job. This structure is very weird for a non-profit, and the stakes here are existential.

        If you cannot trust the CEO of the company to not deceive and manipulate you, you absolutely cannot have confidence that the companies actions will conform to their mission.

        Altman is a sociopath and they should have never caved to his political machinations

    • 9rx3 months ago
      Like others have said, Altman didn't provide trust. That's the very thing a CEO is expected to do. That is their job. A CEO not being able to offer trust is like a programmer not being able to build programs. You'd fire said programmer, no?
    • Zigurd3 months ago
      Both sides were nerds playing office politics, as badly as nerds generally do.
    • zhengiszen3 months ago
      It is called trust, that's what was lacking in their relationship.
    • jalapenos3 months ago
      The dude is clearly a slippery snake.

      What's not clear is what special sauce he brings, beyond being a slippery snake, that someone else couldn't bring.

      • Zigurd3 months ago
        He finagled a few billion dollars out of Microsoft. I'd bet that Microsoft had a word with the coup plotters, and that's why Sam Altman got his job back.