Comment by jsolson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsolson | Hacker News Reader

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I agree that the act of voting itself is too squishy/personal, but the things that led up to it and their handling afterwards?

My curiosity stems from whether the board was involved in signing the contract for Microsoft's investment in the for-profit entity, and where the state might set the bar for fraud or similar crimes. How was the vote organized? Did any of them put anything in writing suggesting they did not intend to honor all of the terms of the agreement? Did the manner in which they conducted this business rise the level of being criminally negligent in their fiduciary duty?

I feel like there are a lot of exciting possibilities for criminality here that have little to do with the vote itself.

... and also +1 to your whole last paragraph.

I've had a case in Germany that for an outsider may have looked like we should have lost it. In a nutshell: we took on a joint-venture to develop a market that we weren't particularly interested in, 51:49 to their advantage. The day after the ink was dried and we had set up their development track to create the product they took the source code and sold it to another party.

We had the whole thing - including the JV - reversed in court in spite of them having the legal right to do all this. The reason: the judge was sympathetic to the argument that apparently the JV was a sham created just to gain access to our code. Counterparty was admonished, a notary public that had failed their duty to act as an independent got the most thorough ear washing that I've ever seen in a court and we got awarded damages + legal fees.

What is legal, what you can do and what will stand up are not always the same thing. Intent matters. And what also really matters is what OpenAI's bylaws really say and to what extent the non-profit's board members exercised their duty to protect the interests of the parties who weren't consulted and who did not get to vote. This so called duty of care - here in NL, not sure what the American term is - can weigh quite heavily.

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