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This makes no sense. People are calling what the board did a coup, but Altman is trying (failing?) to stage a coup. The board was Altmans boss - this is pretty

• seanoliver 3y ago
  I don't see how Sam can return if the board doesn't resign. It's either them or him at this point.
  • j45 3y ago
    Hard to reconcile with people who would do something like that. Differences in interpretations will happen but the YC rule that founder drama is too often a problem continues to exist and it shouldn’t be a surprise.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • pyuser583 3y ago
      What rule is this?
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        I'm not sure what rule the OP is referencing but otherwise reasonably successful start-ups often fail because founders clash on key parts of their vision (or behave in toxic ways towards each other or to other people in the company). This can very handily wreck your company or at a minimum substantially damage it.
        • j45 3y ago
          Rule was a typo, I meant observation. Specifically, cofounder strife is one of the major issues of startups that don’t get where they could. If I recall it was Jessica Livingstone’s observation
          • jacquesm 3y ago
            Rule or observation doesn't matter all that much (it's a shade, after all) and the whole idea lines up with my personal experience.
• sigmar 3y ago
  >People are calling what the board did a coup, but Altman is trying (failing?) to stage a coup. The board removed the board's chairman and fired the CEO. That's why it was called a coup. >The shareholders can fire the board, but that’s not what he’s asking for. And so far we haven’t heard anything about them getting fired nonprofits don't have shareholders (or shares).
  • shmatt 3y ago
    Then the board essentially owns the company, if I understand your comment correctly. So it’s like if Yann LeCun says he’ll come back to Meta once Zuck sells all his shares
    • junofan 3y ago
      There’s no owners. No ownership interest to sell. The board answers to the courts.
      • eightysixfour 3y ago
        Sort of. The board also answers to two other groups: • Employees • Donors or whoever is paying the bills In this case, the threat appears to be that employees will leave and the primary partners paying the bills will leave. If this means the non-profit can no longer achieve its mission, the board has failed.
        • cthalupa 3y ago
          It's possible that the failure occurred at some point in the past. If the board truly believes keeping Altman is inherently incompatible with achieving their charter, they have to let him go. The fallout from that potentially kills the company, but a small chance of achieving the charter is better than no chance. If that's the case, then the failing would be in letting it get to this point in the first place.
  • ummonk 3y ago
    OpenAI isn’t a nonprofit company, and it has shareholders. Edit: nvm I missed the point was about firing the board.
• lijok 3y ago
  What shareholders? OpenAI is a non-profit. Although hectic, it absolutely makes sense in a non-profit.
• gngoo 3y ago
  Doesn’t have to make sense if it’s about this much money to be made/lost by investors.
  • astrange 3y ago
    Nonprofits don't have investors, their problem is too many of their employees are going to leave.
    • ta988 3y ago
      To add to that because it may not be clear for everyone, if they leave the knowledge will sprout other companies that will directly be able to compete with openai with different flavors. If this happens that mean OpenAI may really well be finished and that really well may he the reason why they try desperately to save what they can. Microsoft has a lot to loose here to both in cloud income and because they would loose their enormous tactical advantage they have so far.
• Workaccount2 3y ago
  I think the allure for Altman though would be that OpenAI already has all the pieces in place. Going off and starting his own thing would be great, but it would be at least a year to get product out, even if he had all the same players making it. And that's just to catch up to current tech
  • j45 3y ago
    Except building something the second time around is often quicker and with the current gains of hardware capabilities and interest in the space… maybe it wouldn’t be a year behind.
    • plorg 3y ago
      There are also a ton of ~first mover advantages you can't benefit from, be they of untapped markets for demand or the exploitation of underpriced labor, capital, or IP. If Sam started a new company he would not get as good a deal on hardware or labor, he would get much more scrutiny on his training sets, and he would have to compete against both OpenAI and its competitors.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • j45 3y ago
        For sure. Getting ahead and staying ahead is one of them. I’m just not sure it would be totally starting from scratch since there is more of a playbook and know how.
    • mark_l_watson 3y ago
      I agree. Anthropic and Mistral are good examples. Both companies have key people from OpenAI and they fairly quickly developed good models, but I don’t think either are thinking too hard about real AGI, but instead are trying to create useful and ethical tools.
  • ramraj07 3y ago
• glitchc 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's what happened. Sam and Greg were trying to stage a coup, the rest of the board got wind of it and successfully countered in time (got to them first). What they didn't expect is that a bunch of their own technical staff would be so loyal to Sam (or at least so prone to the cult of personality). Now they're caught in a Catch-22.
• spoonyvoid7 3y ago
  > Imagine if your boss fired you - and your response was - I’ll come back if you quit! Yeah, no. People might confuse status with those of actual ceo shareholders like zuck, bezos, or musk. But Altman is just another employee Think you're missing the big picture here. Sam Altman isn't an "easily replaceable employee" especially given his fundraising skills.
  • kijin 3y ago
    Brilliant as sama is, a star fundraiser is more replaceable than a top engineer. One can imagine Microsoft, for example, swooping in and acquiring a larger share of the for-profit entity (and an actual seat on the board, dammit) for more billions, eliminating the need for any fundraising for the foreseeable future. If a lot of top engieers follow sama out, now that's a real problem.
    • elcritch 3y ago
      There’s probably a lot of behind the scenes drama and phone calls occurring among their top researchers. I’d guess Sam Altman calling them and trying to gain support for a counter coup. Things like this article to give the appearance that Sam et al have ready won, etc. If the board and new CEO isn’t doing that too, they could end up losing.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• chrisfosterelli 3y ago
  > But Altman is just another employee Except he is not. He was a cofounder of the company and was on the board. Your metaphor doesn't make any sense -- this is like if your boss fired you but also you were part of your boss and your cofounder who is on your side was the chair of your boss.
• empath75 3y ago
  The nature of power relationships at this level is not strictly hierarchical and there's a vast wealth differential here, and Sam is a lot more powerful than any of the board members in many many ways. Everybody who has large amounts of money at stake in this enterprise is going to back Altman. The board has no one.
  • elcritch 3y ago
    It to mention I’d wager that Altman is a lot higher on the sociopathic scale as well. The board members sound like somewhat normalish people trying to stick to their charter and perhaps genuine belief in the missions. Altman, not so much.
• hughesjj 3y ago
  > The board was Altmans boss - this is pretty much their only job. Not at all. Ilya and George are on the board. Ilya is the chief scientist, George resigned with Sam and supposedly works like 80-100hrs a week
  • lazystar 3y ago
    > supposedly works like 80-100hrs a week if theyve been doin that for a while, no wonder the board wanted them gone. eventually you cause more work than you put out.
    • bmitc 3y ago
      Not to mention 100 hours not even being logistically possible. Working 100 hours a week with just 5 hours of sleep per day leaves only 4 hours in the day for the other parts of living and getting from a to b. Anyone claiming that, much less for an extended period of time, or either lying or is in slavery against their will.
      • laserlight 3y ago
        My impression is that people don't measure the time they work, but judge it by their impression. First, they think that they work for, let's say, 40 hours per week. They don't consider how much meals, coffee breaks, mental breaks, off-topic office discussions, checking social media, visiting restroom take. Second, when they work overtime, they get tired and overestimate the amount of time they worked. 10 hours of overtime probably feels like 20 hours. 100 hours is equal to 2 full-time jobs and a half time. People believing that number should consider how they would live going to their second job after their day ends (second full-time job) and working on weekends as well (half-time one). Under ideal conditions, someone might be doing it. But, people shouldn't be throwing around these numbers without any time-tracking evidence.
        • bmitc 3y ago
          Agreed. And even if someone is doing it, it isn't something to be proud of. It shows a major gap in management and process and potentially reveals the business to be unviable.
• jxi 3y ago
  [flagged]
• comfysocks 3y ago
  I think this article represents a tactical press release from Sam’s camp. Company in “free fall” without Sam? It’s not even Monday yet.
  • x86x87 3y ago
    yeah. this whole thing looks staged. not saying it's not possible but what kind of board would actually fire the CEO and take it back to resign?
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      The board that has been threatened to be sued individually and collectively by some of the most well known names in IT. They're probably wondering how they can get out of this with their reputations and ego's in one piece. You may have the legal authority to do something but if you don't have the support (or worse: if you haven't checked that you have the support) then it's not exactly the best move.
      • x86x87 3y ago
        I like to believe they actually did their homework and thought this through. We also don't have the full story so it's hard to say.
        • jacquesm 3y ago
          It could be. But I've yet to see any evidence of that. More likely it wasn't because short of a massive skeleton in a cup-board in Sam Altmans' apartment this was mishandled and by now I would have expected that to come out.
          • laserlight 3y ago
            > I've yet to see any evidence of that. What evidence were you expecting to find? The board said that Sam wasn't candid with his communication. I've yet to see any evidence that he was candid. Unless the communication has been recorded, and somehow leaks, there won't be any evidence that we can see.
• TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  > This makes no sense. People are calling what the board did a coup, but Altman is trying (failing?) to stage a coup. I think he stage his coup long ago when he took control of OpenAI making it “CloseAI” to make himself richer by effectively selling it to Microsoft. This is the people who believe in the original charter fighting back. > The shareholders can fire the board, but that’s not what he’s asking for. There are no shareholders in a non-profit if I’m right. The board effectively answers to no one. It’s take it or leave it kind of deal. If you don’t believe in OpenAI’s mission as stated in their charter, don’t engage with them.
• skwirl 3y ago
  Making no effort to obtain a grasp on the basic facts of the situation doesn’t seem to stop people here from posting embarrassing rants. Altman was on the board. He was not “just another employee.” Brockman was also on the board, and was removed. It was a 4 on 2 power play and the 2 removed were ambushed. You also don’t seem to realize that this is happening in the nonprofit entity and there are no shareholders to fire the board. I thought OpenAI’s weird structure was famous (infamous?) in tech, how did you miss it?
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    They even put a nice little page up about it on their site. But that structure is not going to survive this whole ordeal.
• jaredklewis 3y ago
  In a coup, a leader with the support of the people is ousted by force. If we believe the reports that there will be mass resignations, that seems to indicate the founders enjoy the “support of the people.” Of course you can protest, “but in this country the constitution says that the generals can sack the president anytime they deem it necessary, so not a coup.” Yes, but it’s just a metaphor, so no one expects it to perfectly reflect reality (that’s what reality is for). I feel we’ll know way more next week, but whatever the justifications of the board, it seems unlikely that OpenAI can succeed if the board “rules with an iron fist.” Leadership needs the support of employees and financial backers.
  • kijin 3y ago
    > In a coup, a leader with the support of the people is ousted by force. Not necessarily. An unpopular leader can be even easier to overthrow, because the faction planning the coup has a higher chance of gaining popular support afterward. Or at least they can expect less resistance. Of course, in reality, political and/or military leaders are often woefully bad at estimating how many people actually support them.
• miohtama 3y ago
  The true boss is who pays your salaries. Microsoft in this case.
• achow 3y ago
  The board is getting pressured like so.. The playbook, a source told Forbes would be straightforward: make OpenAI’s new management, under acting CEO Mira Murati and the remaining board, accept that their situation was untenable through a combination of mass revolt by senior researchers, withheld cloud computing credits from Microsoft, and a potential lawsuit from investors. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/18/openai-investors-scramble-to-reinstate-sam-altman-as-ceo/?sh=1ae3526960da https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/18/openai-in...
• firtoz 3y ago
  The board here are more like advisors. If Altman takes all of the good engineers and researchers with him, OpenAI is no more. So the board can be the boss of nothing, sure, without the ability to do anything - leading the organisation, raising funds, and so on Perhaps they could hire someone that could replace Sam Altman, but, that would require a much larger company who have the employees indifferent to the leadership, like, EA or something OpenAI is much more smaller and close knit.