A lot of people in tech say that executives are excessively diplomatic and do not speak their truth. But this is what happens when they do too much, too ardently, too often. This is why diplomacy and tact is so important in these roles.

Things do not go well if everyone keeps poking each other with sticks and cannot let their own frame of reference go for the sake of the bigger picture.

Ultimately, I don’t think Altman doesn’t believe ethics and safety is important. And I don’t think Toner fails to realize that OpenAI is only in a place to dictate what AI will be due to its commercial principles. And they probably both agree that there is a conflict there. But what tactful leadership would have done is found a solution behind closed doors. Yet from their communication, it doesn’t even look like they defined the problem statement — everyone offers a different idea of the problem that they had to face together. It looks more like it was more like immature people shouting past each other for a year (not saying it was that, but it looks that way).

Moral of the story: tact, grace, and diplomacy are important. So is speaking one’s truth, but there is a tactful time, place, and manner. And also, no matter how brilliant someone is, if they can’t develop these traits, they end up rocking the boat a lot.