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Who is driving the company (companies)? Certainly not the board, when it can be ousted on the whim of one person. Might as well just get rid of the board (all b
by Berniek 3y ago
Who is driving the company (companies)? Certainly not the board, when it can be ousted on the whim of one person.
Might as well just get rid of the board (all boards in this organization) as any decision made can be overthrown by a bit of publicity and ego.
Perhaps it about getting rich at the expense of any ethics?
Those who work for this company should bear this in mind, they are all expendable!
- htk 3y agoHow about the possibility that the board made a huge mistake and virtually everyone working for the company got pissed?
- manonthewall 3y agoI think this is the correct take
- Tuna-Fish 3y agoThe reason the CEO could oust the board like that was that after the board fired the CEO, 720 of the 770 employees of the company got together and signed a pledge that they will all leave unless the CEO is reinstated and the board fired. This was the purest example of labor democracy and self-organization in action in the United States I have ever seen, my takeaway is rather the opposite of "they are all expendable". They showed very clearly that what decides the future direction of the company is the combined will of the employees.
- bmitc 3y agoThe board should have called their bluff and let them walk.
- jgtrosh 3y agoAnd then we'd witness the market decide whether the company value was provided by its board or its employees
- bmitc 3y agoIt's a non-profit. It should have no value aside from the mission. The only reason the employees mobilized in their whining and support of a person, whose only skills seems to be raising money and cult of personality, seems to be so that Altman can complete the Trojan horse of the non-profit by getting rid of it now that it has completed the side quest of attracting investors and customers.
- temp_praneshp 3y ago[flagged]
- blackoil 3y agoWhich owns a for profit. They would have been left with no employees, no money, no credits, and crown-jewels already licensed to another company. On top of that spending life in minority shareholders lawsuits.
- IgorPartola 3y agoDoes the Red Cross have value? Does Wikipedia? Does the Linux Foundation? I think you are confusing profits, valuations, market cap, and value.
- yreg 3y agoHow would giving everything to Microsoft help the mission? It would have been even worse mission-wise.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago> value aside from the mission. And you believe they could’ve achieved their mission with almost zero employees and presumably the board (well… who else?) having to do all the work themselves? > non-profit by getting rid of it So the solution of the board was to get rid of both the non-profit and for profit parts of the company?
- justinclift 3y ago> And you believe they could’ve achieved their mission with almost zero employees ... It's not like they wouldn't be able to hire new employees. ;)
- 627467 3y agoThey could, or could they? Formally boards don't run companies. Would this scenario - besides ridiculous - be legal? Say they let 99% of the company walk. Who is qualified and responsible to do whatever needs to happened after that happens?
- anticensor 3y agoSome companies are chartered such that even the smallest outside spending requires a board vote.
- 627467 3y agoSome are. The question is: is openAI? And even if they are, the outcome of this novela indicates it don't matter: the board folded.
- nateburke 3y agoI wonder if they ACTUALLY would have landed at Microsoft. And then, would they actually have their TC post tender met there? And would they continue working on AI for some time, independent of reorgs, etc? All of them? A place like MSFT has a TON of process and red tape, the board could have called their bluff and kept at least 40%.
- behringer 3y agoAnd they would have given MS the 60 percent of their employees more interested in politics than anything else.
- willis936 3y agoWhat would that have accomplished? The old board members would still be in charge of the same thing they are today: absolutely nothing. They overplayed their position. That's all there is to it.
- enraged_camel 3y ago>> They overplayed their position. That's all there is to it. They tried to enforce the non-profit's charter, as is their duty. I would hardly frame that as overplaying their hand.
- willis936 3y agoThat's one interpretation, and I'm sure it is the one they had. In my opinion they failed to enforce the charter. Had they been effective at enforcing the charter they would have not folded all of their power to someone they view does not enforce the charter. There is nothing they could have done to fail more.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago>Had they been effective at enforcing the charter they would have not folded all of their power to someone they view does not enforce the charter. There is nothing they could have done to fail more. How specifically do you suggest they should have "not folded all of their power"? Are you saying they should have stuck to their guns when it came to firing Sam? In any case, it's not obvious to me that the board actually lost the showdown. Remember, they ignored multiple "deadlines" from OpenAI employees threatening to quit, and the new board doesn't have Sam or Greg on it -- it seems to be genuinely independent. Lots of people were speculating that Sam would gain complete control of the board as an outcome of this. I don't think that happened. Some are saying that the new board has zero leverage to fire the CEO at this point, since Sam showed us what he can do. However, the new board says they are doing an independent investigation into this incident. So they have the power to issue a press release, at least. And that press release could make a big difference -- to the SEC and other federal regulators, for example.
- itchyouch 3y agoThere was nothing to bluff. The employees would've been hired by Microsoft and OpenAI the company would've had nothing but sourcecode and some infrastructure. They would've gone down quickly.
- monkeywork 3y agoPlease explain why you think they should have let them walk and what benefit to either OpenAI or any of it's partners / customers there would have been in doing so? It feels like you are saying this out of spite rather than with a good reason - but I'm open to listen if you have one.
- moralestapia 3y agoYeah, and that just means that the board is useless de facto. Nice story on a company, maybe, but really bad thing on a "non-profit".
- aardvarkr 3y agoUseless in the sense that they showed themselves to be incompetent with their failed coup and had to pay the price. As the saying goes, “if you take a shot at the king you had better not miss”.
- powersnail 3y agoI don't think it means that the board is useless, but rather that their power has a limit, as all leadership positions do, and the way the fired the CEO has crossed the line too far.
- intended 3y agoIt means the board was out of alignment with their employees and their decision was unusually unpopular. If the board had communicated better (no 2 or different reasons) or had hard evidence (the claim was deceptive behavior) - it would have been different. I expect everyone who reads HN accepts that execution is 70% of the battle. It’s very unsurprising for employees to have made the choices they did, given the handling of the situation.
- cedilla 3y ago"Being useless" and "wielding absolute, unilateral, unquestionable authority like Sun King Louis XIV" are not the only two options here.
- Waterluvian 3y agoBecause Microsoft offered them all jobs.
- LMYahooTFY 3y agoAs if they couldn't easily get a job almost anywhere? Also don't they all have equity in OpenAI? Seems like a pretty shallow take.
- Xenoamorphous 3y ago> Also don't they all have equity in OpenAI? Call me a cynic but this must be the reason behind those 700 employees threatening to walk away, especially if as it seems the board wanted to “slow down”. I don’t think it’s so much of a “we love Altman” as “we love any CEO that will increase the value of our equity”.
- devoutsalsa 3y agoPeople go to work to make money. If they’re lucky, they also like they’re work. It’s ok to want more out of work. Work certainly wants more out of you.
- maayank 3y ago> People go to work to make money If that’s the overriding drive then perhaps they should not got to a non-profit and expect it to optimize for profit
- bad_user 3y agoNon-profit just means there are no stakeholders, meaning that revenue must be used for the organization's expenses, which includes the compensation of employees and growth. Many non-profits also benefit from tax-exemptions. Assuming anything more than that about the nature of non-profits is just romantic BS that has nothing to do with reality. Also, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit.
- fatbird 3y agoThe combined will of the employees is much less meaningful when they're saying "DO IT OR WE'LL TAKE AN ATTRACTIVE OFFER THAT'S ON THE TABLE." I'd have been more impressed by their unity if it would have meant actually losing their jobs.
- bdd8f1df777b 3y agoWhy are you only impressed if the power of employees comes with high cost to their career? When employers exercise their power capriciously, they often do so without any material consequences. I'm more impressed with employees doing the same, i.e., exercising power with impunity.
- fatbird 3y agoA decision with a cost is always more meaningful than one without.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoThat's only a measure of the strength of one's conviction, and is unrelated to whether they chose the right thing, or for the right reasons.
- bdd8f1df777b 3y agoPower without cost is true power. I don't care if their decision is meaningful or not. I'm happy when labor can hold true power, even just for once.
- Beldin 3y agoThey were about to quit... how much more should they lose their jobs to impress you?
- IshKebab 3y agoHe meant if they were to lose their jobs and then have to put actual effort in to get a new one, like most people.
- hurtuvac78 3y agoThen you should be interested in the story of MarketBasket, a major supermarket chain in New England. Their CEO was fired, but came back because of employees. Similar, in a very different industry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Basket_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Basket_protests
- moritz 3y agoYeah, unionizing so your boss doesn’t get fired really is the most SF/US “labor democracy” thing ever
- ilikehurdles 3y agoI agree. 1. A group of highly skilled people voluntarily associating with each other 2. in an organization working on potentially world-changing moonshot technology, 3. born of and accelerated by the liquidity of the free market 4. with said workers having stake in the success of that organization is very American. We should ponder the reasons why, time and time again, it has been the US "system" that has produced the overwhelming number of successes in such ventures across all industries, despite the attempts of many other nations to replicate these results in their own borders.
- Fluorescence 3y ago> This was the purest example of labor democracy and self-organization in action in the United States I have ever seen This was not an anonymised vote giving the chance to safely support what you believe free from interference... this was to declare for the King or the Revolution knowing that if don't choose who prevails, you will be executed. It becomes a measure of which direction the people believe the wind is blowing rather than a moral judgement. Power becomes about how a minority can coerce/cajole the impression of inevitability not the merit of their arguments. I will be curious to hear the inside story once the window of retribution has passed. Unions hold proper private ballots not this type of suss politicking.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- civilized 3y agoHacker News represents hackers, not Boards of Directors. The hackers of OpenAI overwhelmingly demanded Sam back. Everyone here should be happy.
- 627467 3y agoReading through comments I felt that at least superficially many in HN thought this was a fight between "business exec(s) and technical/qualified scientists" as if any organization can exist based purely on technical (as in technological or academic) expertise. If anything, this novela should tech the importance of politics in any human organization.
- yumraj 3y agoTheir wallets demanded Sam back. The original, founder hacker lost.
- behringer 3y agoJust the way the users here like it.
- yumraj 3y agoYou may want to speak for just yourself. I’m also a user here, with a differing opinion. There’s no singular unified HN opinion.
- civilized 3y agoWho exactly are you referring to?
- yumraj 3y agoIlya, lost. One of the original hackers I should have said. There are other original hackers.
- 3y ago
- 627467 3y agoJust the whim of 1 person? Just the ego of 1 person? 700+ egos it seems. Ultimately, what is an organization if not the people who make it up? Regardless of what actually happened in this Mexican novela, whoever was steering the narrative - in awareness or not - led everyone to this moment and the old board lost/gave up. > Who is driving the company (companies)? There's probably not a single answer that covers all orgs at all times. I don't know if the core of what happened was due to a fight between "safetyist and amoral capitalists" or "egomaniac and representative board" but it the end it was clear who stayed and who left. Ideas are only as powerful as the number of people of gets persuaded. We are not yet(?) at a moment where persuading AGI is sufficient, so, good ideas should persuade humans. Enough of them.
- az226 3y agoNot just egos, a 9-figure secondary tender offer employees were counting on.
- ajmurmann 3y agoI've always like the metaphor that companies, especially large ones, are like an autonomous AI that has revenue generation as it's value function and operates in that interest and not in the interest of the individuals that make up the company.
- Leo_Germond 3y agoAh if only it were that simple, truth is a company, especially old ones, have a value function that is in flux, and this may include revenue generation but more often than not this is completed or replaced by replaced by some variation of political clout acquisition: it makes them unkillable even with a negative balance sheet.
- andsens 3y agohttps://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1442 https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1442
- colordrops 3y agoThose who work for most companies are all expendable, at least in the US, and especially in the tech sector right now.
- koliber 3y agoIn the end, social constructs drive such decisions, not computer algorithms. Having independent boards adds more friction and variety to major decisions. That does not mean that there is no way to influence them or change boards. It’s how the world has always worked. It’s disconcerting to those who think about such things in simpler black and white terms, but there is a higher logic to the madness.
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