Hacker News Reader

Comment by jessenaser | Hacker News Reader

> Mr. Altman complained that the research paper seemed to criticize OpenAI’s efforts to keep its A.I. technologies safe while praising the approach taken by Anthropic, according to an email that Mr. Altman wrote to colleagues and that was viewed by The New York Times.

> OpenAI's board of directors approached rival Anthropic's CEO about replacing chief Sam Altman and potentially merging the two AI startups, according to two people briefed on the matter. (https://www.reuters.com/technology/openais-board-approached-...)

It all makes sense.

View on HN

So, at least the outline of something that is consistent begins to form:

- board is reduced in size

- Altman has a collision with Toner

- Toner proposes they get rid of Sam and offer the company to Anthropic thinking they won't refuse

- They pull the trigger on Altmans's ouster, Ilya goes along for /reasons/, D'Angelo goes along because it nicely dovetails with his own interests and #4 is still a mystery

- Mira gets named interim CEO

- Anthropic is approached, but, surprise refuses, possibly on account of the size of the shitstorm that was already developing

- Mira sees no way out without simply trying to backtrack to Thursday last week

- Gets fired for that because it is the last thing the cabal wants

- They approach Shear to be their new CEO

- Who has now apparently announced that if the board doesn't come clean he will resign

- <= you are here.

I think you missed the part where Sam apparently tried to get Toner off the board first, which would probably be sufficient justification for removing him as CEO (if the story is as described, i.e. it was on a silly pretext).

It's covered. Second line.

It's covered with a vague line that would also cover merely having a disagreement with.

Feel free to improve on it, it's open source, unlike OpenAI.

Did Mira also get fired?

Yes.

And the whole time no one thought to phone Satya Nadella regarding his $10 billion investment and to get his input.

Good. His money came with no strings*. In fact, if they had run this past him before making their decision, that would have been a breach of their duty as outlined in their charter.

They may have made mistakes with timing (making this decision too late), or with execution (not having a replacement CEO solidly lined-up and in the loop), but the core decision—to remove Sam—is definitely not something they should ask donors about. It's not Satya's business how the board makes decisions at this level.

* Other than a capped profit return if there is any.

Who cares what he thinks, his money is gone and he has no control over it.

In fact the most positive outcome is if Altman and the rest of the staff went to MS and did their thing and OpenAI started from scratch with the $13B they've come into. That would double the chances of something useful emerging from the OpenAI work so far.

I personally think Altman is very much less than a genius (maybe at extracting financial advantage) so all OpenAI's eggs shouldn't be placed in that particular basket.

That's literally not the job of this board.

Why would the board care about that?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com