The worst thing about this whole affair has been the failure of the board to coherently express, seemingly to anyone, why they did what they did.
Or maybe it involves a deal that they're stuck with, and now dependent upon, even if the terms aren't aligned well with the non-profit. Saying that could be awkward.
What I can't guess at explanations for is publicly stating the not-consistently-candid in the initial announcement. I'm not expert on these things, but that sounds to me like either a euphemism for something that they needed to be seen as explicitly distancing the company from ASAP or a blunder that a lawyer or PR person would've advised them not to do, and which they didn't need to do.
At this point, that's the 95% conclusion.
If you were in this position and had even a sliver of defensibility to play, you would have already played it.
Because the longer this goes, the more sharks circle and the less likely OpenAI's survival becomes.
(UNLESS you thought you f---ed up and wanted Altman back so you want to be nice to him. But if you wanted that, you wouldn't have hired Shear as interim CEO to replace your previous interim CEO.)
(Was) a hundred billion dollar rocketship, pioneering the future. That this is only the first such palace intrigue we've seen is surprising.
The root of the problem seems to lie in the challenges of growth and the accompanying pressures. The issues we've observed in the past week are likely tied to weak or ineffective leadership. This isn't just about leading developers or the technical team; it's about leadership at every level within the company. If leadership were strong and clear, I doubt these issues would have arisen.
It's like whenever there is a power vacuum, all the possible contenders compete and there's chaos. The existence of chaos suggests at least that there's a power vacuum at the top. Similar to when big leaders throughout history died, their children/lieutenants then fought and caused civil wars (e.g Mongols).
But while a leader is strong, there can be stability. Take, for instance, Facebook during its initial growth phase. Despite facing intense pressure from various quarters, it never descended into chaos or disarray. This stability could be attributed to a robust board, or perhaps to Mark Zuckerberg's leadership effectiveness. Whatever your opinion of him, his leadership across all levels of the company and on the board seemed to prevent competing interests from creating chaos.
This situation also underscores the importance of selecting the right people for the board. It's not just about finding smart individuals who look good on paper or focusing on trendy topics like AI ethics. The board members need a deep understanding of startups and business. Maybe the current board's inexperience and theoretical approach are issues. It could be that they are too young or resemble a vanity board more than an effective one.
However, we can't place all the blame on the board. Strong, clear, and effective leadership at the top is crucial. Sam Altman might excel in many areas, but perhaps what's needed is a leader like Zuckerberg at Facebook (and perhaps a similar leadership structure, too), or current-era Musk, someone who could have possibly prevented these problems.
Am I the only one who finds these kinds of explanations unconvincing? I don't think anyone knows precisely what was going through Sutskever's mind on Friday, but whenever the best explanation people have for an event is that an obviously very smart person suddenly became very stupid, it gives me the feeling that we don't have all the information.
Take your pick and state it in a highbrow fanciful way and boom you're cookin with gas.
I think it’s often the people who want power but, want to do something not good with it or abuse it, who get upset when their power-seeking is identified as what it is.
I understand if “it’s obvious” hand wavy, but your comment, which makes vague assertions that I don’t know without backing it up, could be considered hand wavy. It might even come across as an abusive attempt to silence someone saying something you dislike, by trying to frame the speaker as “ignorant, therefore should not speak.”
The obviousness of what I said arises from power being a perennial dynamic of human behavior, which I think your comment does a fair and job of demonstrating hahaha! :)
Their letter claims he was dishonest about something, we will see in the coming months why. I'm still very confused as to why Ilya would seemingly orchestrate such a monumental shift in the company, only to claim his 'deep regret' a few days later. It's pretty odd...
The main theory that fits for me is that he didn't want the mission to become profit-seeking, and probably Sam played down some of the deals he was making, or didn't mention them at all. Once Sam was removed, presumably pressure from the rank-and-file, the hundreds of people he sees everyday who uprooted their lives for a piece of that profit, turned Ilya away from his more pure convictions...
But who knows, this story will be interesting to watch over time.
It’s likely that the first type, of personal power, is included in the other type of power, but what is meant here by “power” is: you get to shape the future and make huge money doing it.
Regarding Ilya’s seemingly contradictory behavior, it appears more likely that he wasn’t really orchestrating the coup.
Instead, he was a pawn, manipulated by other interests to be the public face of the coup. These interests appealed to his ego and desire for more recognition and power within the company. Ilya’s perceived entitlement to a more significant role probably made him an easy target. So, it’s not accurate to say that Ilya orchestrated the coup.
It seems it was orchestrated by other key players on the board, primarily the backers behind the scenes. These backers likely include intelligence and policy security experts fronted by Helen (the AU-UK-China intelligence and security policy wonk axis), and those aligned with military-industrial interests, such as those represented by Tasha (RAND Corporation et al).
This coup had probably been planned for a while, with the goal of removing Sam who created obstacles to their plans. They tried to provoke him into a mistake, and when they believed they saw a moment of weakness, they executed their plan. However, the plan failed spectacularly.
For obvious reasons this would never probably be widely acknowledged, so it may be written up in some more niche blogs on use letters if anyone cares to do the investigative journalism.
As a result, as I previously stated it would be unwise to consider at face value The lies and presented as explanations for the coup, because of the power that is at stake.
Moreover, if you wish to gain a clearer understanding, consider the context into which the obvious players are in bedded.
The board has bylaws governing how it works. One of them says that it has to have 48 hours notice before a special online meeting (to, e.g. agenda, minutes, resolutions, actions). I think a board member cannot speak officially on behalf of them before that. Perhaps they have already had a meeting to get legal advice before a further announcement? We might be due an announcement soon.
Basically all boards work slow and we want instant responses which causes conflict.
However it's still mind boggling to me that a) they didn't foresee the response of their decisions and b) they haven't produced anything on paper explaining things to the company afterwards. I would have expected the CEO to say something like "they are meeting at this date according to their by laws" but perhaps a CEO cannot reveal such information legally?
They lost a CEO and chairman pretty suddenly....
Why Altman was fired.
What dishonesty? I'm sympathetic to this version of events, but if it's true then the board ought to be able to give specifics - and if they can't then the strident tone of the initial announcement was unjustified.
Also, when you fire somebody with cause, you don't broadcast the gory details. You're not trying to destroy them, just get them out of your orbit. Retaining the whole reason also limits the legal comeback.
Personally pretty tired of the drama.
I can build such a funny hypothetical scenario.
Step1 get on a board of a big company.
Random board members leave and out of 9 people in the original board there are only 6 left.
3 of them dont like each other.
Pit them against each other to oust the 2 of them. So now only 4 remain.
Now oust the last guy whose vote you needed earlier (to kick out the other people). You dont need him anymore. He can write some random complaint letters, who cares. He can even stay on the board, the clique can always outvote him.
Now only 3-4 left on board.
Recruit spouses and grandparents to the board to fill back to 9. In fact, you dont even have to - you answer to nobody as long as you stay on the board.
Congrats, you now control an 80 billion company.
Sell the intellectual property to highest bidder in a bargain sale for 20b, then pay each other 10b in salaries, use 9b for legal fees and start a new startup for 1b for fiduciary duties as a fig leave to show that the non profit still operates.
Oh also allegedly most employees want to quit, but whatever, use a dollar bill to wipe your tears.
Wouldnt all that be absolutely legal? In Soviet states probably. In USA?
That's not what I recall. They didn't need to. The Loans for Shares Scheme became public knowledge (sort of) and everyone realized the oligarchs literally stole everything. Every major industry that millions had died to make in Stalin's five year plans with the promise of a coming utopia was the private property of those connected with Yeltsin. Fortunately for them, the people didn't understand capitalism enough to know what happened or they'd be rioting in the streets.
In other words, what if they knew the suit was coming and sought to make Sam the fall guy by firing him sort-of-for-cause ... but they're stuck, because they can't explain what the cause reason was, without admitting the board was aware of the misconduct.
https://www.semafor.com/article/11/21/2023/openai-microsoft-...