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People keep speculating sensational, justifiable reasons to fire Altman. But if these were actual factors in their decision, why doesn't the board just say so?

People keep speculating sensational, justifiable reasons to fire Altman. But if these were actual factors in their decision, why doesn't the board just say so? Until they say otherwise, I am going to take them at their word that it was because he a) hired two people to do the same project, and b) gave two board members different accounts of the same employee. It's not my job nor the internet's to try to think up better-sounding reasons on their behalf.

Wronnay 3y ago
The Issue with these two explanations from the board is that this is normally nothing which would result into firing the CEO. In my eyes these two explanations are simple errors which can occur to everybody and in a normal situation you would talk about these Issues and you could resolve them in 5min without firing anybody.
- kmlevitt 3y ago
  I agree with you. But that leads me to believe that they did not, in fact, have a good reason to fire their CEO. I'll change my mind about that if or when they provide better reasons. Look at all the speculation on here. There are dozens of different theories about why they did what they did running so rampant people are starting to accept each of them as fact, when in fact probably all of them are going to turn out to be wrong. People need to take a step back and look at the available evidence. This report is the clearest indication we have gotten of their reasons, and they come from a reliable source. Why are we not taking them at their word?
  - katastofik 3y ago
    > Why are we not taking them at their word? Ignoring the lack of credibility in the given explanations, people are, perhaps, also wary that taking boards/execs at their word hasn't always worked out so well in the past. Until an explanation that at least passes the sniff test for truthiness comes out, people will keep speculating. And so they should.
    - kmlevitt 3y ago
      Right, except most people here are proposing BETTER reasons for why they fired him. Which ignores that if any of these better reasons people are proposing were actually true, they would just state them themselves instead of using ones that sound like pitiful excuses.
      - katastofik 3y ago
        Whether it be dissecting what the Kardashians ate for breakfast or understanding why the earth may or may not be flat, seeking to understand the world around us is just what we do as humans. And part of that process is "speculating sensational, justifiable reasons" for why things may be so. Of course, what is actually worth speculating over is up for debate. As is what actually constitutes a better theory. But, if people think this is something worth pouring their speculative powers into, they will continue to do so. More power to them. Now, personally, I'm partly with you here. There is an element of futility in speculating at this stage given the current information we have. But I'm also partly with the speculators here insofar as the given explanations not really adding up.
        kmlevitt 3y ago
        Think you're still missing what I'm saying. Yes, I understand people will speculate. I'm doing it myself here in this very thread. The problem is people are beginning to speculate reasons for Altman's firing that have no bearing or connection to what the board members in question have actually said about why they fired him. And they don't appear to be even attempting to reconcile their ideas with that reality. There's a difference between trying to come up with theories that fit with the available facts and everything we already know, and ignoring all that to essentially write fanfiction that cast the board in a far better light than the available information suggests.
        katastofik 3y ago
        Agreed. I think I understood you as being more dismissive of speculation per se. As for the original question -- why are we not taking them at their word? -- the best I can offer is my initial comment. That is, the available facts (that is, what board members have said) don't really match anything most people can reconcile with their model of how the world works. Throw this in together with a learned distrust of anything that's been fed through a company's PR machine, and are we really surprised people aren't attempting to reconcile the stated reality with their speculative theories? Now sure, if we were to do things properly, we should at least address why we're just dismissing the 'facts' when formulating our theories. But, on the other hand, when most people's common sense understanding of reality is that such facts are usually little more than fodder for the PR spin machine, why bother?
wordpad25 3y ago
>People keep speculating Your take isn't uncommon, only are missing the main point of your interpretation - that the board is fully incompetent if it was truly that petty of a reason to ruin the company. It's not even that it's not a justifiable reason, but they did it without getting legal advice or consulting with partners and didn't even wait for markets to close. Board destroyed billions in brand and talent value for OpenAI and Microsoft in a mid day decision like that. This is also on Sam Altman himself for building and then entertaining such an incompetent board.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > that the board is fully incompetent if it was truly that petty of a reason to ruin the company It's perfectly obvious that these weren't the actual reasons. However yes, they are still incompetent because they couldn't think of a better justification (amongst other reasons which led to this debacle).
- kmlevitt 3y ago
  >Your take isn't uncommon, only are missing the main point of your interpretation - that the board is fully incompetent if it was truly that petty of a reason to ruin the company. No, I totally agree. In fact what annoys me about all the speculation is that it seems like people are creating fanfiction to make the board seem much more competent than all available evidence suggests they actually are.
codeulike 3y ago
For what its worth, here's a thread from someone who used to work with Sam who says they found him deceptive and manipulative https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/1726754270224023971 https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/172675427022402397... I have no details of OpenAI's Board’s reasons for firing Sam, and I am conflicted (lead of Scalable Alignment at Google DeepMind). But there is a large, very loud pile on vs. people I respect, in particular Helen Toner and Ilya Sutskever, so I feel compelled to say a few things. ... Third, my prior is strongly against Sam after working for him for two years at OpenAI: 1. He was always nice to me. 2. He lied to me on various occasions 3. He was deceptive, manipulative, and worse to others, including my close friends (again, only nice to me, for reasons)
- kmlevitt 3y ago
  The General anecdotes he gives later in the thread line up with their stated reasons for firing him: he hired another person to do the same project (presumably without telling them), and he gave two different board members different opinions of the same person. Those sound like good reasons to dislike him and not trust him. But ultimately we are right back where we started: they still aren't good enough reasons to suddenly fire him the way they did.
  - leoc 3y ago
    It's possible that what we have here is one of those situations where people happily rely on oral reports and assurances for a long time, then realise later that they really, really should have been asking for and keeping receipts from the beginning.
    - kmlevitt 3y ago
      Not sure if you’re referring to Sam, the board, or everybody trying to deal with them. But either way, yeah.
- cma 3y ago
  Here's another anecdote, posted in 2011 but about something even earlier: > "We were trying to get a big client for weeks, and they said no and went with a competitor. The competitor already had a terms sheet from the company were we trying to sign up. It was real serious. > We were devastated, but we decided to fly down and sit in their lobby until they would meet with us. So they finally let us talk to them after most of the day. > We then had a few more meetings, and the company wanted to come visit our offices so they could make sure we were a 'real' company. At that time, we were only 5 guys. So we hired a bunch of our college friends to 'work' for us for the day so we could look larger than we actually were. It worked, and we got the contract." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3048944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3048944
zztop44 3y ago
I agree, and what’s more I think the stated reasons make sense if (a) the person/people impacted by these behaviours had sway with the board, and (b) it was a pattern of behaviour that everyone was already pissed off about. If board relations have been acrimonious and adversarial for months, and things are just getting worse, then I can imagine someone powerful bringing evidence of (yet another instance of) bad/unscrupulous/disrespectful behavior to the board, and a critical mass of the board feeling they’ve reached a “now or never” breaking point and making a quick decision to get it over with and wear the consequence. Of course, it seems that they have miscalculated the consequences and botched the execution. Although we’ll have to see how it pans out. I’m speculating like everyone else. But knowing how board relations can be, it’s one scenario that fits the evidence we do have and doesn’t require anyone involved to be anything other than human.
- kmlevitt 3y ago
  Yeah I’m leaning toward this possibility too. The things they have mentioned so far are the sorts of things that make you SO MAD when they actually happen to you, yet that sound so silly and trivial in the aftermath of trying to explain to everybody else why you lost your temper over it. I’m guessing he infuriated them with combinations of “white“ lies, Little sins of omission, general two-facedness etc., and they built it up in their heads and with each other to the point it seemed like a much bigger deal than it objectively was. Now people are asking for receipts of categorical crimes or malfeasance and nothing they can say is good enough to justify how they overreacted.

Wronnay 3y ago

The Issue with these two explanations from the board is that this is normally nothing which would result into firing the CEO. In my eyes these two explanations are simple errors which can occur to everybody and in a normal situation you would talk about these Issues and you could resolve them in 5min without firing anybody.

kmlevitt 3y ago
I agree with you. But that leads me to believe that they did not, in fact, have a good reason to fire their CEO. I'll change my mind about that if or when they provide better reasons. Look at all the speculation on here. There are dozens of different theories about why they did what they did running so rampant people are starting to accept each of them as fact, when in fact probably all of them are going to turn out to be wrong. People need to take a step back and look at the available evidence. This report is the clearest indication we have gotten of their reasons, and they come from a reliable source. Why are we not taking them at their word?
- katastofik 3y ago
  > Why are we not taking them at their word? Ignoring the lack of credibility in the given explanations, people are, perhaps, also wary that taking boards/execs at their word hasn't always worked out so well in the past. Until an explanation that at least passes the sniff test for truthiness comes out, people will keep speculating. And so they should.
  - kmlevitt 3y ago
    Right, except most people here are proposing BETTER reasons for why they fired him. Which ignores that if any of these better reasons people are proposing were actually true, they would just state them themselves instead of using ones that sound like pitiful excuses.
    - katastofik 3y ago
      Whether it be dissecting what the Kardashians ate for breakfast or understanding why the earth may or may not be flat, seeking to understand the world around us is just what we do as humans. And part of that process is "speculating sensational, justifiable reasons" for why things may be so. Of course, what is actually worth speculating over is up for debate. As is what actually constitutes a better theory. But, if people think this is something worth pouring their speculative powers into, they will continue to do so. More power to them. Now, personally, I'm partly with you here. There is an element of futility in speculating at this stage given the current information we have. But I'm also partly with the speculators here insofar as the given explanations not really adding up.
      - kmlevitt 3y ago
        Think you're still missing what I'm saying. Yes, I understand people will speculate. I'm doing it myself here in this very thread. The problem is people are beginning to speculate reasons for Altman's firing that have no bearing or connection to what the board members in question have actually said about why they fired him. And they don't appear to be even attempting to reconcile their ideas with that reality. There's a difference between trying to come up with theories that fit with the available facts and everything we already know, and ignoring all that to essentially write fanfiction that cast the board in a far better light than the available information suggests.
        katastofik 3y ago
        Agreed. I think I understood you as being more dismissive of speculation per se. As for the original question -- why are we not taking them at their word? -- the best I can offer is my initial comment. That is, the available facts (that is, what board members have said) don't really match anything most people can reconcile with their model of how the world works. Throw this in together with a learned distrust of anything that's been fed through a company's PR machine, and are we really surprised people aren't attempting to reconcile the stated reality with their speculative theories? Now sure, if we were to do things properly, we should at least address why we're just dismissing the 'facts' when formulating our theories. But, on the other hand, when most people's common sense understanding of reality is that such facts are usually little more than fodder for the PR spin machine, why bother?

wordpad25 3y ago

>People keep speculating Your take isn't uncommon, only are missing the main point of your interpretation - that the board is fully incompetent if it was truly that petty of a reason to ruin the company. It's not even that it's not a justifiable reason, but they did it without getting legal advice or consulting with partners and didn't even wait for markets to close. Board destroyed billions in brand and talent value for OpenAI and Microsoft in a mid day decision like that. This is also on Sam Altman himself for building and then entertaining such an incompetent board.

qwytw 3y ago
> that the board is fully incompetent if it was truly that petty of a reason to ruin the company It's perfectly obvious that these weren't the actual reasons. However yes, they are still incompetent because they couldn't think of a better justification (amongst other reasons which led to this debacle).
kmlevitt 3y ago
>Your take isn't uncommon, only are missing the main point of your interpretation - that the board is fully incompetent if it was truly that petty of a reason to ruin the company. No, I totally agree. In fact what annoys me about all the speculation is that it seems like people are creating fanfiction to make the board seem much more competent than all available evidence suggests they actually are.

codeulike 3y ago

For what its worth, here's a thread from someone who used to work with Sam who says they found him deceptive and manipulative https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/1726754270224023971 https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/172675427022402397... I have no details of OpenAI's Board’s reasons for firing Sam, and I am conflicted (lead of Scalable Alignment at Google DeepMind). But there is a large, very loud pile on vs. people I respect, in particular Helen Toner and Ilya Sutskever, so I feel compelled to say a few things. ... Third, my prior is strongly against Sam after working for him for two years at OpenAI: 1. He was always nice to me. 2. He lied to me on various occasions 3. He was deceptive, manipulative, and worse to others, including my close friends (again, only nice to me, for reasons)

kmlevitt 3y ago
The General anecdotes he gives later in the thread line up with their stated reasons for firing him: he hired another person to do the same project (presumably without telling them), and he gave two different board members different opinions of the same person. Those sound like good reasons to dislike him and not trust him. But ultimately we are right back where we started: they still aren't good enough reasons to suddenly fire him the way they did.
- leoc 3y ago
  It's possible that what we have here is one of those situations where people happily rely on oral reports and assurances for a long time, then realise later that they really, really should have been asking for and keeping receipts from the beginning.
  - kmlevitt 3y ago
    Not sure if you’re referring to Sam, the board, or everybody trying to deal with them. But either way, yeah.
cma 3y ago
Here's another anecdote, posted in 2011 but about something even earlier: > "We were trying to get a big client for weeks, and they said no and went with a competitor. The competitor already had a terms sheet from the company were we trying to sign up. It was real serious. > We were devastated, but we decided to fly down and sit in their lobby until they would meet with us. So they finally let us talk to them after most of the day. > We then had a few more meetings, and the company wanted to come visit our offices so they could make sure we were a 'real' company. At that time, we were only 5 guys. So we hired a bunch of our college friends to 'work' for us for the day so we could look larger than we actually were. It worked, and we got the contract." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3048944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3048944

zztop44 3y ago

I agree, and what’s more I think the stated reasons make sense if (a) the person/people impacted by these behaviours had sway with the board, and (b) it was a pattern of behaviour that everyone was already pissed off about. If board relations have been acrimonious and adversarial for months, and things are just getting worse, then I can imagine someone powerful bringing evidence of (yet another instance of) bad/unscrupulous/disrespectful behavior to the board, and a critical mass of the board feeling they’ve reached a “now or never” breaking point and making a quick decision to get it over with and wear the consequence. Of course, it seems that they have miscalculated the consequences and botched the execution. Although we’ll have to see how it pans out. I’m speculating like everyone else. But knowing how board relations can be, it’s one scenario that fits the evidence we do have and doesn’t require anyone involved to be anything other than human.

kmlevitt 3y ago
Yeah I’m leaning toward this possibility too. The things they have mentioned so far are the sorts of things that make you SO MAD when they actually happen to you, yet that sound so silly and trivial in the aftermath of trying to explain to everybody else why you lost your temper over it. I’m guessing he infuriated them with combinations of “white“ lies, Little sins of omission, general two-facedness etc., and they built it up in their heads and with each other to the point it seemed like a much bigger deal than it objectively was. Now people are asking for receipts of categorical crimes or malfeasance and nothing they can say is good enough to justify how they overreacted.