OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing
wsj.com
wsj.com
So while you’re right that Sama isn’t crucial to OpenAI, I think a lot more employees are aligned with Sama’s vision.
If that "vision" is the thing that you're worried about, because you think rapid commercialization is actively dangerous, then you may very well have a reason to want to completely blow up the commercial side of OpenAI. Even if it gets reconstituted elsewhere, you've at least created a speed bump by forcing it to get reconstituted.
It's inconvenient that in the medium to long term that means you wind up with fewer GPUs for the True Cause(TM), but at least the people you have working on it believe in that cause, and at least you haven't actively accelerated some destructive outcome.
How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes that eventually OpenAI will turn to full-profit mode.
It is pretty clear, that if board wants to run company for greater good, for-profit-only CEO must leave.
Regardless of who they fired, if the board is known to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about top executives without so much as a heads up to large investors, it's not clear that any investor will see them as being worth investment.
It is non-profit company, so investors should not be expecting too much increased returns for their investment other than the product and cooperation what this company provides.
If firing the CEO has no significant negative impact for actual product quality or cooperation, it should not be in the intrestes of investors.
Especially, if the argument for firing is revolved around profit/non-profit future of the company, if the expectations for the original investors was right (investing non-profit). In that case, it is not arbitrary or capricious decisions. But I would of course would like to see some transparency, since we don't really know what happened yet.
You think they just acted on a whim? Why?
Why is everybody assuming that the board just flipped out and did something insane?
To me, the rational assumption is that the board - being composed of multiple people who seem fairly well-grounded, i.e. not terminally online twitter types - are acting rationally. That's supported by them acting professionally; releasing one single press release and then shutting the hell up, presumably on the advice of their lawyers.
Because they fired him on Friday due to unspecified "lack of trust" issues and now, 2 days later, the new interim CEO is reportedly in talks to hire him back?
Do you not see why this looks like they fired him on a whim?
Literally nobody unbiased is reporting this. This reporting is _all_ coming from 'their side.' You are inside the smoke and mirrors if you can't see that.
new interim CEO Emmett Shear is involved in mediating these negotiations, creating the frankly unprecedented situation where (1) the interim CEO who replaced (2) the interim CEO who replaced Sam and who (3) got replaced for trying to get Sam back is now (4) deeply involved in a new effort to get Sam back
Explain to me how this was a well thought out transition and not done on a whim? Even the new CEO who was put into place after the interim CEO is trying to get Altman back.
Yeah sure eventually he could poach people and it’s always possible that this is the beginning of a transition but there’s some seriously magical thinking going on here.
OpenAI has 700 and they’re highly compensated. How would you even onboard and meet payroll in a week for a non existent entity if you suddenly had even half that number?
Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting?
> Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting?
Not saying it will happen but I'd honestly say this would be the least of the issues. VC's and established companies would be fighting tooth and nail to invest money in whatever venture Sam Altman/Greg Brockman + whatever % of staffers were launching. Money would not be the problem here. Think of how much money so many were willing to throw at the con-job that the vast majority of crypto was and then think of how much money they would throw at AI tools (which are clearly a big deal already).
As far as I can tell Altman’s real serious talent is getting billionaire types to like him. First Paul Graham then Elon and the initial OpenAI funders. In both cases he seems to have been dropped rather abruptly after running things for a few years.
He has never personally built meaningful tech and has definitely never actually demonstrated anything approaching popularity with any rank and file employees.
Might happen. But it sure hasn’t yet. I don’t doubt that the Davos / Bohemian Grove set will install him in another position though, he does seem to have a genuine knack for that.
And he did VC fund-raising before that for early projects too. Give his Wikipedia a read.
He is clearly a very savvy businessman and smooth operator on a personal level. And has been involved in enough high profile successes that I don't think it is a fluke.
That’s pretty clearly where the stories are being sourced from. The narrative that the board was begging to get him back emerged all at once in an organized fashion.
Doesn’t prove it’s not true, maybe they are. Stranger things have happened. But definitely not something to take on faith without a clearer statement from those on the other side of the conflict.
After that he was Pres of ycombinator for a while.
Lucky? Sure. But I'd guess he's responsible for a significant amount of OpenAI's success.
Have you worked for an average / incompetent boss? It is bad.
I would like to know what is the actual reason for why they fired him though. Is there more to this story than meets the eye?
I do think this is a shame, because the structure had the potential to allow altruistic people to maintain some kind of governor on the commercial growth engine, but now that will be gone.
No information came to light to back this sudden and unexpected decisions but were there criminal acts involved, it certainly would not be unexpected. CEOs get instant fired for being under investigation for criminal acts all the time. But again, 48hs later it seems clear it was not the case
Sometimes this is the _only_ way in which you proceed. If you gain knowledge of something truly egregious and don't eject the culprit you become immediately liable for any future malfeasance. Sometimes 'wow, gtfo right now' is the only safe course of action.
If they did have such a compelling reason to stuff their own reputation, they did a horrible job communicating it.
I think their communication is perfectly professional. You're just expecting some weird tell-all because that's how this sector weirdly chooses to operate, just blurting shit out on twitter then thinking about the consequences later.
The wording of their press release is wonderfully professional. Discreet, generic, succinct. That's how things should be done.
It's the other side that are acting oddly. Charging into the office and taking selfies, counting public oaths of fealty on twitter? V. weird.
"I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company."
https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028?t=DjA...
Turns out the secret to getting through something like this is to simply have spent the past 15+ years genuinely helping everyone you've ever come across.
His CEO replacement supports him, the chairman of the board supports him, his investors (at least Satya + Kohsla) support him, his entire org supports him. You'd expect a handful of these people not to if there was really anything there, right?
A group of OpenAI executives and investors racing to get Sam Altman reinstated to his role as chief executive officer have reached an impasse over the makeup and role of the board, [...] Altman, who was fired Friday, is open to returning but wants to see governance changes — including the removal of existing board members, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private. After facing intense pressure following their decision to fire Altman Friday, the board agreed in principle to step down, but have so far refused to officially do so. As of midday Sunday, the board had not resigned out of concern over who could replace them, and were vetting candidates, one of the people said.
The board doesn't work from the office (they're not employees), and there's absolutely no way they'd negotiate on Sam's home turf.
It's been noted that Satya is leading the negotiations on Sam's behalf, and he's certainly not in SF.
Rather, this is a show of solidarity from the OpenAI team. I bet the plan is to be together when Sam is reinstated.
EDIT: meaning it's important that the AI isn't given problems whose solution harms beings, at all, let alone war- not even by carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
Do Saudi/Middle Eastern sovereign money funds often invest in gay founders/executives?
And they work with all kinds of infidels and sinners in general. Money is money.
Sam has always spoken favorably of the non-profit portion of the company, and he's very aware that the importance of what OpenAI is doing exceeds what a corporation can handle.
I can't imagine this was just Altman. I suspect that a large proportion of current OpenAI staff is in it for the money and couldn't care less about the non-profit goals of the pre-ChatGPT era. In fact, many probably oppose the idea because it stands in the way of a big payout down the line.
This coup was probably some sort of the last stand for the old-timers who still believe in the non-profit mission, but I doubt they can prevail in the long haul. Not without gutting the company, at the very least.
Mind you, the risk of "AI" acting on its own is massively exaggerated. It's AI-wielding humans who are the real unalignable threat.
IMO depends where you draw the line between "AI acting on its own" and "person takes AI that shouldn't be left unsupervised, sets it going in an infinite loop, leaves it unsupervised, then it explodes" (so far mostly in small ways and in the face of the person who did it, which is basically fine, but still, where do you draw the line?)
Some initial coverage talked about Sutskever's concerns over the lack of openness (possibly in publishing results if not full open source).
Other coverage made Sutskever sound like a doomer (the "AI will take over" type), although popular media often does conflate real concerns about the biases of some AI models with doomerism.
Also: “when you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk!”
Ultimately, whatever it was, it will be smoothed over.
OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38337568 - Nov 2023 (18 comments)
Obviously not on the level of GPT4/Claude (there are some good comparisions), but close enough to dispel any notion that this One True Saviour is needed for this field to advance. By all accounts he wasn't even spending that much time on it.
Technology is the new religion and Musk/Altman are the new messiahs, with Jobs and Gates as the patron saints.
The opposite of cult worship is NOT cult antipathy.
As organized religion recedes, people fill the vacuum with gods of their own making.
He seems slimy as hell and I’m giving Ilya the benefit of the doubt.
It's not a comparison of personal talent.
It's simply the best known case of a highly visible CEO of a popular, groundbreaking company being ousted by the board.
So the comparison is natural. Apple and OpenAI are definitely similarly groundbreaking companies in the eye of the consumer.
In the right corner the company that created and still completely controls GPT-4.
Why are you so sure about who wins this face off?
People who want to get paid or are loyal to Sam will follow Sam. Microsoft is clearly behind Sam. "Whoever holds the gold makes the rules."
EDIT: gkoberger said it far better, and captures the value beyond the physical and fiat components of the power struggle: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38337782
"I don't think he's on his own. All those people he helped in the past have come out to support him. Almost his entire company (minus the board) has publicly supported him. His team is currently hosting him at the office with hopes to reinstate him. The CEO who temporarily replaced him has publicly and privately supported his return. OpenAI's investors are backing him. His cofounder quit in solidarity.
Turns out the secret to getting through something like this is to simply have spent the past 15+ years genuinely helping everyone you've ever come across."
The idea that Microsoft is somehow the one irreplaceable part of this formula is completely fucking bizzare.
But you might want to question why you’re so sure that’s the case. People talk about that a lot but it’s pretty rare to actually see that happen.
The usual way things like this go is most people go huh how about that and go back to work at their job the next day and think about their family and weekend plans.
In his case it’s especially odd given his oddly thin track record of actual success. He seems incredibly good at ingratiating himself with extremely powerful people, but there’s no evidence at all of him being a popular leader or particularly good at building and executing on anything.
Ask yourself how he got his last two jobs. He wasn’t exactly voted in due to widespread popular support.
In both cases however he departed abruptly amidst what looks like interpersonal conflict.
Difference here is OpenAI is not Google or FB with tens of thousands of employees bulk of which are engineers most likely not be able to get current level of compensation in case of mass layoff/resignations. OpenAI is couple of hundred people and are highly rated due to perceived level of success. So it is opposite of risk to follow the leader who has gotten them high level of compensation so far.
> He seems incredibly good at ingratiating himself with extremely powerful people
You seem to think it is negative. For most people including OpenAI employees it is great advantage to be working for/with him.
I feel like everyone should be forced to watch a few Game of Thrones episodes before commenting. Organizations act in their own self interest. Leaders are convinced they’re irreplaceable all the way to the gallows steps.
If Sam can sabotage OpenAI or if the remaining people can’t capably run the organization then sure people will walk away. But if they keep things from falling apart nobody is going to give a fuck.
Without its exclusive relationship to Microsoft, there are other people with access to money and compute that would like a leg up in the enterprise AI space that Microsoft would be taking a major, even if (optimistically) temporary, step back from its leading position in by terminating its relationship with OpenAI.
Edit: updated pronouns