Occam Razors would say so. That's my take as well. They just underestimated the fanboy level of religious following that tech CEOs now possess and the scale of

Occam Razors would say so. That's my take as well. They just underestimated the fanboy level of religious following that tech CEOs now possess and the scale of impact that would lead too. From their point of view, it was just business as usual, or maybe they thought that the more vocal public voice would be that of those that are more concerned with AI and ethics and that also don't want to see AI fall pray to capital driven incentives, and are supportive of OpenAI specifically because of it's Non for profit arrangement. For example, when Sam became CEO, it led to people leaving and starting Anthropic (now considered OpenAIs biggest competitor), and the reason for that split was because of Sam's increased move away from the core values of OpenAI. It's very possible they assumed that more people felt that way, and would be happy about their firing of Sam.