I don't think that the firing of Sam Altman was due to commercialization of GPT-3 and GPT-4, and I don't think there's been any reliable information that confirms that. There's been multiple statements that at least partially contradict that, including:

Emmett Shear: "Before I took the job, I checked on the reasoning behind the change. The board did not remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that. I'm not crazy enough to take this job without board support for commercializing our awesome models." [1]

Brad Lightcap: We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices. This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board.” [2]

Also, I believe Adam D'Angelo made some pro-commercialization comments on Twitter earlier this year.

[1] https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1726526112019382275

[2] https://fortune.com/2023/11/19/sam-altman-was-fundraising-fo...