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Incredible. Is this unprecedented or have been other cases in history where the vast majority of employees standup against the board in favor of their CEO?
by tacone 3y ago
Incredible. Is this unprecedented or have been other cases in history where the vast majority of employees standup against the board in favor of their CEO?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- selimthegrim 3y agoMarket Basket.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoI had to click too many links to discover the story, so here's a direct link to the New England Market Basket story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Basket_(New_England)#2014_firing_of_Arthur_T._Demoulas_and_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Basket_(New_England)#20...
- abnry 3y agoOh yes, I lived through this and it was fascinating to see. Very rarely does the big boss get the support of the employees to the extent they are willing to strike. The issue was that Artie T. and his cousin Artie S. (confusingly they had the same first name) were both roughly 50% owners and at odds. Artie S. wanted to sell the grocery chain to some big public corporation, IIRC. Just before, Artie T had an outstanding 4% off on all purchases for many months, as some sort of very generous promo. It sounded like he really treated his employees and his customers (community) well. You can get all inspirational about it, but he described supplying food to New England communities as an important thing to do. Which it is.
- nightski 3y agoI highly doubt this is directly in support of Altman and more about not imploding the company they work for. But you never know.
- debacle 3y agoCould also be an indictment of the new CEO, who is no Sam Altman.
- gkoberger 3y agoI'm sure this is a big part of it. But everyone I know at OpenAI (and outside) is a huge Sam fan.
- mycologos 3y ago> everyone I know at OpenAI (and outside) is a huge Sam fan Everyone you know is a huge Sam fan? What?
- checkyoursudo 3y agoI was going to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if I am one of only a handful of the people whom I know who even know who sama is.
- stingraycharles 3y agoI reckon the people working at OpenAI know who sama is, though.
- paulddraper 3y agoJobs was fired from Apple, and a number of employees followed him to Next. Different, but that's the closest parallel.
- Wytwwww 3y agoOnly a very small number of people left with Jobs. Of course, probably mainly because he couldn't necessarily afford to hire more without the backing of a trillion-dollar corporation...
- _zoltan_ 3y agoApple back then was not a trillion dollar corporation.
- varjag 3y agoMicrosoft now is.
- dimask 3y agoImagine if Jobs had gone to M$.
- KerrAvon 3y agoNo, the failures at NeXT weren’t due to a lack of money or personnel. He took the people he wanted to take (and who were willing to come with him).
- nprateem 3y agoIn favour of the CEO who was about to make them fabulously wealthy. FTFY.
- firejake308 3y agoYeah, especially with the PPU compensation scheme, all of those employees were heavily invested in turning OpenAI into the next tech giant, which won't happen if Altman leaves and takes everything to Microsoft
- chii 3y agoand there aint nothing wrong with wanting to be fabulously wealthy.
- zxndomisaaz2 3y ago[dead]
- wintogreen74 3y agoof course not, but at least have the decency to admit it - don't hide behind some righteous flag of loyalty and caring.
- Mistletoe 3y agoGreed is good, eh Gordon Gekko? https://youtube.com/watch?v=VVxYOQS6ggk https://youtube.com/watch?v=VVxYOQS6ggk
- bart_spoon 3y agoThat is entirely dependent on how that wealth is obtained
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Is this unprecedented or have been other cases in history where the vast majority of employees standup against the board in favor of their CEO? It's unprecedented for it to be happening on Twitter. But this is largely how Board fights tend to play out. Someone strikes early, the stronger party rallies their support, threats fly and a deal is found. The problem with doing it in public is nobody can step down to take more time with their families. So everyone digs in. OpenAI's employees threaten to resign, but actually don't. Altman and Microsoft threaten to ally, but they keep bachkchanneling a return to the status quo. (If this article is to be believed.) Curiously quiet throughout this has been the OpenAI board, but it's also only the next business day, so let’s see how they can make this even more confusing.
- jasonfarnon 3y agodoubtful since boards don't elsewhere have an overriding mandate to "benefit humanity". usually their duty is to stakeholders more closely aligned with the CEO.