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Comment by rtpg | Hacker News Reader

The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is. The general idea of "Altman was signing a bunch of business deals without board approval, was told to stop by the board, he said he would, then proceeded to not stop and continue the behavior"... that feels like the juicy bit (if that is in fact what was happening, I know nothing).

This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are we in the comments section of an article talking about the internals of this thing? We love the drama, don't we.

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This certainly feels like the most likely true reason to me. Altman fundraising for this new investment, and taking money from people the board does not approve of, and Altman possible promised not to do business with.

Of course it's all speculation, but this sounds a lot more plausible for such a sudden and dramatic decision than any of the other explanations I've heard.

Moreover, if this is true, he could reasonably well continue knowing that he has more power than the board. I could almost imagine the board saying, "You can't do that" and him replying "Watch me!" because he understood he is more powerful than them. And he proved he was right, and the board can either step down and lose completely or try to continue and destroy whatever is left of OpenAI.

The thing is, they could have just come out with that fact and everyone in the alignment camp and people who memed the whole super-commercialized "Open" AI thing would be on their side. But the fact that they haven't means that either there was no greater-good mission related reason for ousting Sam or the board is just completely incompetent at communication. Either way, they need to go and make room for people who can actually deal with this stuff. OpenAI is doomed with their current board.

That is a very good point. Why wouldn't they come out and say it if the reason is Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia? Why make up weak fake reasons?

On the other hand, if it's really just about a power struggle, why not use Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia as the fake reason? Why come up with some weak HR excuses?

Because anything they say that isn't in line with the rules governing how boards work may well open them up to - even more - liability.

So they're essentially hoping that nobody will sue them but if they are sued that their own words can't be used as evidence against them. That's why lawyers usually tell you to shut up, because even if the court of public opinion needs to be pacified somehow the price of that may well be that you end up losing in that other court, and that's the one that matters.

If it was all about liability, The press release wouldn’t have said anything about honesty. The press release could’ve just said the parting was due to a disagreement about the path forward for openAI.

As a lawyer, I wonder to what extent lawyers were actually consulted and involved with the firing.

If they have not consulted with a lawyer prior to the firing then that would be highly unusual for a situation like this.

Maybe the board is being prevented or compelled not to disclose that information? Given the limited information about the why, This feels like a reverse psychology situation to obfuscate the public's perception to further some premeditated plan.

I'm betting they are just colossally bad communicators, the majority of the board, and in the heat of an emotional exchange things were said that should not have been said, and being the poor communicators we know in tech oh so well, shit hit the fan. It's worth being said, Sam's a pretty good communicator, and could have knowingly let them walk into their own statements and shit exploded.

Telling people that AGI is acheivable with current LLM with minor tricks may be very dangerous in itself.

> the board can either step down and lose completely or try to continue and destroy whatever is left of OpenAI.

From the board's perspective, destroying OpenAI might be the best possible outcome right now. If OpenAI can no longer fulfill its mission of doing AI work for the public good, it's better to stop pretending and let it all crumble.

I am not sure if it would be commendable or out-right stupid though for the remaining board members to be that altruistic, and actually let the whole thing crash and burn. Who in their right mind would let these people near any sort of decision-making role if they let this golden goose just crash to the ground, even if would "benefit the greater good" - cannot see that this is in the self-interest of anyone

Spoken like a true modern. What could be more important than money? Makes you wonder if aristocracy was really that bad when this is the best we get with democracy!111

What other motivations are there other than naked profit and trying to top Elon? /s

https://twitter.com/Benioff/status/549339156854214656?lang=e...

Except that letting it all crumble leaves all the crumbs in Microsoft's hands. Although there may not be any way to prevent that anyway at it point.

If the board had already lost control of the situation anyway, then burning the "OpenAI" fig leaf was an honorable move.

If this is true why not say it though? They didn’t even have lawyers telling them to be quiet until Monday.

Are you suggesting that all people will do irresponsible things unless specifically advised not to by lawyers?

The irresponsible thing is to not explain yourself and assume everyone around you has no agency.

I don't follow. If the irresponsible thing is to not explain themselves, why would the lawyers tell them to be quiet?

To minimize legal risk to their client, which is not always the most responsible thing to do.

This was my guess the other day. The issue is somewhere in the intersection of "for the good of all humanity" and profit.

> The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is

This is exactly it, and it's astounding that so many people are going in other directions. Either this is true, and Altman has been a naughty boy, or it's false, and the board are lying about him. Either would be the starting point for understanding the whole situation.

Or it is true but not to a degree that it warrants a firing and that firing just so happened to line up with the personal goals of some of the board members.

They accused him of being less than candid, which could mean lying or it could mean he didn't tell them something. The latter is almost certainly true to at least a limited extent. It's a weasel phrasing that implies lying but could be literally true only in a trivial sense.

The announcement that he is acted to get a position with Microsoft creates doubt about his motives.

Agreed, court intrigue. But it is also the mundane story of a split between a board and a CEO. In normal cases the board simply swaps out the CEO if out of line, no big fuss. But if the CEO is bringing in all the money, having the full support of the rest of organization, and is a bright star in mass media heaven, then this is likely what you get: the CEO flaunts the needs of the board and runs his own show, and gets away with it, in the end.

It just confirmed what was already a rumor, the board of OpenAI was just a gimmick, Altman held all the strings and maybe cares, or not, about safety. Remember this is a man of the highest ambition.

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