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>A board member criticizing a non-profit doesn't have the same direct connection to a result opposite of the goals of the company. Even in a nonprofit, the boa
by Aunche 3y ago
>A board member criticizing a non-profit doesn't have the same direct connection to a result opposite of the goals of the company.
Even in a nonprofit, the board has an obligation to maintain a good working relationship with their organization. It's very rare for a board member to publicly criticized for their own organization.
Also, this argument goes out the window because OpenAI is not just a nonprofit. When they started their for-profit subsidiary in 2019, they accepted a fiduciary duty to their investors.
- sarchertech 3y agoThat’s not how that works. You can argue that Ilya has a fiduciary responsibility to the investors as an officer of the company. Toner doesn’t. She is an independent board member on the board of the non-profit that owns a controlling share in the company, but she doesn’t personally own a majority share of the company. As an independent board member, she has no duty but to uphold the charter. She represents no shareholders. Majority shareholders may have some fiduciary responsibility to minority shareholders, so you might be able to make the argument that the board as a whole shouldn’t write disparaging remarks about the company. But even that argument is tenuous.
- Aunche 3y agoShe joined the board of OpenAI knowing that they owned a for profit subsidiary that received billions of dollars of investment. Being independent means that she could provide a unique outsider perspective, not that she has no obligations to her organization whatsoever. If you're going to be completely independent, you shouldn't be surprised when over 90% of the organization turns against you.
- sarchertech 3y agoWhether people turn against her or not is irrelevant to my point. She has no personal fiduciary duty to the minority shareholders in the for-profit company. Her only duty is to the charter.
- Aunche 3y agoThat people turned against her is relevant because it demonstrates how untenable this standard of independence is. A charter is just a collection of words. She isn't a board member to a collection of words. She's a board member to an organization of people
- sarchertech 3y agoIt’s not relevant to my point that she has no fiduciary duty to anything but the charter. Her only personal fiduciary responsibility is to the mission defined in that collection of words, not to the employees of the for-profit. That’s how this works whether you think it should or not.
- Aunche 3y agoAre you going to engage with anything I say or are you just going repeat yourself again? Is there a divine stone tablet that commands a nonprofit board member is solely responsible for the nonprofit's charter that I'm missing?
- sarchertech 3y agoNo because it's not relevant to the only point I made, which is that Helen Toner has no personal fiduciary responsibility to the investors of the for-profit. You implied that she couldn't publicly disparage the for-profit because the board has a fiduciary responsibility to the minority investors in the the for-profit. I only piped up to correct that single point because it's wrong.
- Aunche 3y agoI mean sure was free to publicly disparage her organization, but then she can't expect not to be antagonized. My point is that being a board member is a responsibility, it's valid for Sam to interpret her paper as a violation of her responsibility.
- calf 3y agoOr, the organization has an obligation to respect freedom of academic inquiry, because the truth is what helps organizations grow, change, and mature, does it not? If the company cannot handle independent critique then its fragility is not the fault of the researcher who is telling the truth.
- ruszki 3y ago> accepted a fiduciary duty to their investors. Did they?