4 ms·
Leaving aside much of the other craziness: Who did the board expect would replace him? Did they expect to install Ilya and he bailed last minute? How could you
by wand3r 3y ago
Leaving aside much of the other craziness: Who did the board expect would replace him? Did they expect to install Ilya and he bailed last minute? How could you possibly be calling around on a weekend trying to recruit a CEO? Everyone is knocking the board, so I am not going to break new ground here, but WHAT TF were they thinking? My only thought is maybe they expected they could dump sama and slot in another high level figure and they would work it out, but there was so much immediate blowback that they bailed?
- divbzero 3y agoI think they planned for Mira Murati to act as interim CEO, but were surprised when she wanted to rehire Sam Altman.
- gjsman-1000 3y agoI think the board was surprised when nobody bought their claim of Sam’s vague wrongdoing. Actually, I think every plot twist we’ve seen has been a surprise for them as they have consistently acted without 5 minutes of foresight. And not just with the drama. For example, according to Stratechery, the clause in the contract saying Microsoft couldn’t use GPT-4 as a foundation for their own models was recently removed in a contract revision. If you don’t like your CEO, and Microsoft likes your CEO, and Microsoft has the rights to your models and code, it doesn’t take much to add up 2 + 2 + 2 = 6.
- user_named 3y agoI guess they weren't involved in the day to day enough to know that about the contract
- siva7 3y agoThat’s also not the job of a board
- ubercore 3y agoIn this case, with these stakes, I think it's in the board's purview to understand the implications of firing your CEO with no immediate replacement plan, and the current state of possibly the most important contract your company has would be relevant.
- willvarfar 3y agoHmm, that contract revision _would_ have been grounds for dismissing Sam, if only the board had known...? The current story is that the board scrambled to find unconvincing grounds when explaining themselves to employees instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38356534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38356534
- eastbound 3y agoWell the board could have gone with “We fear a hostile takeover by Microsoft” if they really were afraid that Sam was doing that.
- konschubert 3y ago> Actually, I think every plot twist we’ve seen has been a surprise for them as they have consistently acted without 5 minutes of foresight. Which is ironic considering how much they claim to be focused on long term risks :)
- cyanydeez 3y agoeh, I'm pretty sure there was wrong doing the difference is entirely whether you're on the profit side or the nonprofit side.
- guappa 3y agoI like how she has a wikipedia page that is 1 week old.
- lordnacho 3y agoOne perspective that one often hears, but nobody seems to have brought up here, is that the role of the board is essentially a kind of joke that doesn't really do what it says on the tin. A bunch of friends of the management, given a lot of money for very little work. People here have even pointed out how unqualified they think the board members are, or how they have conflicts of interest. Picture yourself in this world where you essentially get free money for pretending to advise a company. Most of the time, you don't need to do shit. Other people have got you covered, the company does some well known widget-making business and everyone has known since business school how the business works. You just nod your head when there's a board meeting and otherwise try to keep a good handicap at the country club. When there's a decision to be made, you feel out which side will win and hedge your bets. You've get several of these board jobs, and each of them thinks the other memberships are why they are hiring you. One day, your friend invites you to be on the board of a company that does something truly new and interesting. In fact some people say this is the modern day Manhattan project, taking humanity into a new yet potentially dangerous age. It's prestigious, and you think how different can it really be to any other business? As time passes, you realize your strategy of just doing whatever the other board members are doing is not going to work. There is this really big question of what you should do about keeping things "safe", a vague idea that you've heard of from some prominent employees. It dawns upon you that you might actually have to think about what to do. Eventually, you crap yourself, and you decide to use some of the formal powers of the board. You saw on Silicon Valley that the board can depose the CEO, maybe that should be done? You know a bunch of people who have talked about AI in the past, perhaps one of them has a clue about what to do?
- the_gipsy 3y agoI love this take!
- vasco 3y agoHow many board meetings have you attended, in any capacity?
- lordnacho 3y agoSeveral but not many, as a board member. None of the boards I was on had frequent meetings. But also I was always on the "working" side of the board. My impression of the external side is somewhat similar to the view I'm presenting above. It's not that they are completely unqualified to comment on the company, they actually had tangentially relevant experience. But what did they really add, other than making our webpage look better? And if things went wrong, what would they really lose? They are just curious folks who are excited to be around business, and can introduce us to interested parties. The other thing the board is supposed to do is pull the emergency break if stuff goes wrong. It's hard to know how closely they monitored that sort of thing, given it doesn't happen that much. Also if things get bad, do they jump ship or act like what a bystander might in a car accident, ie try to call emergency services but not stick their head in the fire? Because the rest of us have our heads in the fire.