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> Angel investor Ron Conway wrote, "What happened at OpenAI today is a Board coup that we have not seen the likes of since 1985 when the then-Apple board pushed

• gkoberger 3y ago
  I mostly agree with you on this. That being said, I've never gotten the impression Ron is the type of VC you're referring to. He's definitely founder-friendly (that's basically his core tenant), but I've never found him to be the type of VC who is ruthless about cost-cutting or an advocate for layoffs. (And I say this as someone who tends to be particularly wary of investors)
  • wolverine876 3y ago
    Thanks. I updated my GP comment accordingly.
  • everly 3y ago
    Just a heads up, the word is 'tenet' (funny enough, in commercial real estate there is the concept of a 'core tenant' though -- i.e. the largest retailer in a shopping center).
• s1artibartfast 3y ago
  >The board's job is not to do right by 'Sam & Greg', but to do right by OpenAI. When mangement lays off 10,000 employees, the investors congratulate management. Thats why Sam & Greg wasn't all they complained about. They lead with the fact that it was shocking and irresponsible. Ron seems to think that the board is not making the right move for OpenAI.
  • sangnoir 3y ago
    > They lead with the fact that it was shocking and irresponsible. I can see where the misalignment (ha!) may be: someone deep in the VC world would reflexively think that "value destruction" of any kind is irresponsible. However, a non-profit board has a primary responsibility to its charter and mission - which doesn't compute for those with fiduciary-duty-instincts. Without getting into the specifics of this case: a non-profit's board is expected to make decisions that lose money (or not generate as much of it) if the decisions lead to results more consistent with the mission.
    • s1artibartfast 3y ago
      >However, a non-profit board has a primary responsibility to its charter and mission - which doesn't compute for those with fiduciary-duty-instincts Exactly. The tricky part is that board started a second for profit company with VC investors who are co-owners. This has potential for messy conflicts of interest if there is disagreement about how to run the co-venture, and each party has contractual obligations to each other.
      • cthalupa 3y ago
        > Exactly. The tricky part is that board started a second for profit company with VC investors who are co-owners. This has potential for messy conflicts of interest if there is disagreement about how to run the co-venture, and each party has contractual obligations to each other. Anyone investing in or working for the for-profit LLC has to sign an operating agreement that states the LLC is not obligated to make a profit, all investments should be treated as donations, and that the charter and mission of the non-profit is the primary responsibility of the for-profit LLC as well.
• threeseed 3y ago
  > The board's job is not to do right There is why you do something. And there is how you do something. OpenAI is well within its rights to change strategy even as bold as from a profit-seeking behemoth to a smaller research focused team. But how they went about this is appalling, unprofessional and a blight on corporate governance. They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two camps and have let Sam and Greg go angry and seeking retribution. Which in turn now creates the threat that a for-profit version of OpenAI dominates the market with no higher purpose. For me there is no justification for how this all happened.
  • mise_en_place 3y ago
    Keep in mind that the rest of the board members have ties to US intelligence. Something isn't right here.
    • simonjgreen 3y ago
      Do you have citations for that? That’s interesting if true
    • deeviant 3y ago
      I'm pretty sure Joseph Gordon-Levitt's wife isn't a CIA plant.
      • SturgeonsLaw 3y ago
        She works for RAND Corporation
    • zxndomisaaz2 3y ago
      There had better be US intelligence crawling all over the AI space, otherwise we are all in very deep shit.
  • varelse 3y ago
    [dead]
  • 3y ago
• dragonwriter 3y ago
  > The board's job is not to do right by 'Sam & Greg', but to do right by OpenAI. The board's job is specifically to do right by the charitable mission of the nonprofit of which they are the board. Investors in the downstream for-profit entity (OpenAI Global LLC) are warned explicitly that such investments should be treated as if they were donations and that returning profits to them is not the objective of the firm, serving the charitable function of the nonprofit is, though profits may be returned.
  • spadufed 3y ago
    > charitable mission of the nonprofit of which they are the board This exactly. Folks have completely forgotten that Altman and Co have largely bastardized the vision of OpenAI for sport and profit. It's very possible that this is part of a larger attempt to return to the stated mission of the organization. An outcome that is undoubtedly better for humanity.
    • phpisthebest 3y ago
      Have they though.. What is the evidence of that, and what is your evidence that this "return to mission" will "undoubtedly better for humanity" After all, as we see by looking to history, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, lots and lots of altruistic do gooders have created all manner of evil in their pursuit of a "better humanity". I am not sure I agree with Sam Altman's vision of a "better tomorrow" any more than I would agree with the OpenAI boards vision of that same tomorrow. In fact I have great distrust of people that want to shape humanity into their vision of what is "best" that tends to lead to oppression and suffering
• trhway 3y ago
  >it does not do right by Sam you get that you sow. The way Altman publicly treated Cruise co-founder establishes like a new standard of "not do right by". After that I'd have expected nobody would let Altman near any management position, yet SV is a land of huge money sloshing care-free, and so I was just wondering who is going to be left holding the bag.
• roguecoder 3y ago
  Bingo. I met Conway once. He described investing in Google because it was a way to relive his youth via founders who reminded him of him at their age. He said this with seemingly no awareness of how it would sound to an audience whose goal in life was to found meaningful, impactful companies rather than let Ron Conway identify with us & vicariously relive his youth. Just because someone has a lot of money doesn’t mean their opinions are useful.
  • fuzztester 3y ago
    >Just because someone has a lot of money doesn’t mean their opinions are useful. Yes. There can often be an inverse correlation, because they can have success bias, like survival bias.
• jacquesm 3y ago
  I'm fairly certain that a board is not allowed to capriciously harm the non-profit they govern and unless they have a very good reason there will be more fall-out from this.
• no_wizard 3y ago
  Corporate legal entities should have a mandatory vote of no confidence clause that gives employees the ability to unseat executives if they have a supermajority of votes. That would make things more equitable perhaps. It’d at least be interesting
  • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    This is called employee ownership. And yes, it would be great.
• tim333 3y ago
  If they were looking out for investors "blindsided key investor and minority owner Microsoft, reportedly making CEO Satya Nadella furious" doesn't make it sound like they did a terribly good job.
• justcool393 3y ago
  it's hilarious how much people for no reason, want to defend the honor of Sam Altman and co. i mean ffs, the guy is not your friend and will definitely backstab you if he gets the opportunity. i'm surprised anyone can take this "oh woe is me i totally was excited about the future of humanity" crap seriously. these are SV investors here, morally equivalent to the people on Wall Street that a lot here would probably hold in contempt, but because they wore cargo shorts or something, everyone thinks that Sam is their friend and that just if the poor naysayers would understand that Sam is totally cool and uses lowercase in his messages just like mee!!!! they don't give a shit that your product was "made with <3" or whatever they don't give a shit about you. they don't give a shit about your startup's customers. they only give a shit about how many dollars they make from your product. boo hooing over Sam getting fired is really pathetic, and I'd expect better from the Hacker News crowd (and more generally the rationalist crowd, which a lot of AI people tend to overlap with).
  • pokepim 3y ago
    [dead]
  • tim333 3y ago
    That seems a bit irrationally negative. I mean "[Sam] will definitely backstab you if he gets the opportunity." I don't know him but he seems a reasonably decent / maybe average type.
  • j7ake 3y ago
    Yeah it’s crazy how much the tech community is defending this random CEO, considering the relatively unsympathetic response to the tech layoffs over the last year.
• bertil 3y ago
  I read this as, and both Conway and Y Combinator are famous for their defense of founders. He might be emotional and defend his friends that’s not in challenge, he likes the guys— and he might be more cynical when it comes to firing 10,000 engineers —that’s less what I’ve heard about him personally, but maybe— however, in this case, he’s explicitly defending not an employee victim of the almighty board, but the people who created the entity, who later entrusted the board with some responsibility to keep the entity faithful to its mission. Some might think Sam deserves that title less than Greg… not sure I can vouch for either. But Conway is trying to say that all entities (and their governance) owe their founders a debt of consideration, of care. That’s filial piety more than anything contractual. That isn’t the same as the social obligation that an employer might have. The cult for founders, “0 to 1” and all that might be overblown in San Francisco, but there’s still a legitimate sense that the people who started all this should only be kicked out if they did something outrageous. Take Woz: he’s not working, or useful, or even that respectful of Apple’s decisions nowadays. But he still gets “an employee discount” (which is admittedly more a gimmick). That deference is closer to what Conway seems to flag than the (indeed) fairly violent treatment of a lot of employees during the staff reduction of the last year.
  • wolverine876 3y ago
    That is a thoughtful exploration (or exposition) of what I was meaning to say. My point is that loyalty, that filial piety, should go to the employees who also work and sacrifice. I think the distinction of founders is a rationalization of simple corruption: They know the founder, it's their buddy; they go to the same club, eat at the same restaurants, serve on the same boards, and have similar careers. Understanding the burden and challenges and the accomplishment of founders is instinctive, and appreciating founders is appreciating themselves.
• financypants 3y ago
  I think almost everyone at OpenAI would be ok if there were layoffs there though
  • fulladder 3y ago
    Why? Are there a lot of useless employees there?
    • financypants 3y ago
      No, probably not, I just mean they have OpenAI on their resume which I think is pretty prestigious