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The botched firing of Sam Altman proves that fancy governance structures are little more than paper shields against the market. Whatever has been written can b

The botched firing of Sam Altman proves that fancy governance structures are little more than paper shields against the market. Whatever has been written can be unwritten and if that fails, just start a new company with the same employees.

x0x0 3y ago
I'm not sure why you attribute that as a shield against the market. That seemed much more like an open employee revolt. And I can't think of a governance structure that is going to stop 90% of your employees from saying, for example, we work for Sam Altman, not you idiots...
- mousetree 3y ago
  An employee revolt due to the market. The employees wanted to cash out in the secondary offering that Sam was setting up before the mess. It was in (market) interest to get him back and get the deal on track.
  - dmix 3y ago
    Broad speculation
  - x0x0 3y ago
    Employees care about their pay is so reductive as to be meaningless. Any action any employee takes can be labelled as such.
- iojrgao 3y ago
  Yes, they wanted to work for Sam... because he was arranging a deal to give them liquidity and make them rich. The board was not going to make them rich.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Because at some point, the plurality of employees do not subordinate their personal desires to the organizational desires. The only organizations for which that is a persistent requirement are typically things like priest hoods
- romwell 3y ago
  The plurality of employees are not the innovators that made the breakthrough possible in the first place. People are not interchangeable. Most employees may have bills to pay, and will follow the money. The ones that matter most would have different motivation. Of course, of your sole goal is to create a husk that milks the achievement of the original team as long as it lasts and nothing else — sure, you can do that. But the "organizational desires" are still desires of people in the organization. And if those people are the ducks that lay the golden eggs, it might not be the smartest move to ignore them to prioritize the desires of the market for those eggs. The market is all too happy to kill the ducks if it means more, cheaper eggs today. Which is, as the adage goes, why we can't have the good things.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Yeah we agree here, but the problem lies with the team If you hire people who want to cash out then you’ll get people who prioritize prospects for cashing out Set another way they did not focus on the theoretical public mission enough that it was core to the every day being of the organization much like it is for Medicins San Frontiers etc.
    - xwolfi 3y ago
      Medecins Sans Frontieres
      - vdddv 3y ago
        Médecins Sans Frontières
    - insane_dreamer 3y ago
      Most of the people they hired were to work for OpenAI.com which was a pure profit-driven tech company just like any other (and funded by Microsoft). Those who joined the original OpenAI (including its independent board members) were driven by different motivations more in line with research and discovery.
gooseus 3y ago
"Cease quoting bylaws to those of us with yachts"
samstave 3y ago
>>>"The botched firing of Sam Altman proves that fancy governance structures are little more than paper shields against the _market_." - ...Or rather ( $ ) . ( $ ) immediate hindsight eyes...
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  λ>:t ( $ ) . ( $ ) ( $ ) . ( $ ) :: (a -> b) -> a -> b I really didn't expect the type to be simple, but in hindsight, it's obvious.
  - Cacti 3y ago
    Is this a boob joke or a money joke?
    - dev_hugepages 3y ago
      A haskell one
      - samstave 3y ago
        For great justice!
boringuser2 3y ago
I wonder if your lesson is "Sam Altman should/would have been fired but for market forces".
- ertgbnm 3y ago
  I don't know whether Sam should be fired because no one has published the reason that he was in the first place. All I know is that the first time that the authority of the board was used to make an unpopular decision in what presumably the board members thought was in the interest of protecting the values of OpenAI, there was an insurrection that succeeded in having the board reverse the decision. The board exists to make unpopular decisions that further the core mission of OpenAI as opposed to furthering the bottom line. But the second that the core mission and the bottom line came into conflict with one another, it became clear which one actually controls OpenAI.
- ohwellhere 3y ago
  The lesson is that "should have been fired" was believed by the people who had power on paper; "should not have been fired" was believed by the people actually had power.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    That just simplifies things a hair too much. Remember, the people who worked at OpenAI, subject to market forces, also supported the return of Altman. Market forces are broad and operate at every level of power, hard and soft.
    - xdavidliu 3y ago
      > Remember, the people who worked at OpenAI, subject to market forces, also supported the return of Altman. I believe that's what your parent comment was actually talking about. I read it saying the people in power on paper was the previous board, and the people actually in power were the employees (which by the way is an interesting inversion of how it usually is)
    - 3y ago
corethree 3y ago
It was botched because the public was too stupid to see how much of a snake Sam Altman is. He was fired from Y-combinator and people were still Universally supporting him on HN. IF people hated him he would've been dropped. Microsoft and everybody else only moved forward because they knew they wouldn't get public backlash. Seems everyone fails to remember their own mob mentality. People here on HN were practically worshipping the guy. Statistically most people commenting here right now were NOT supporting his firing and now you've all flipped and are saying stuff like: "yeah he should've been fired." Seriously? I don't blame the governance. They tried their best. It's the public that screwed up. (Very likely to be YOU, dear reader) Without public support the leadership literally only had enemies at every angle and they have nowhere to turn. Imagine what that must have felt like for those members of the board. Powerful corporations threatening aspects of their livelihoods (of course this happened, you can't force a leader to voluntarily step down without some form of a serious threat) and the entire world hating on them for doing such a "stupid" move as everyone thought of it at the time. I'm ashamed at humanity. I look at this thread and I'm seriously thinking, what in the fuck? It's like everyone forgot what they were doing. And they still twist it to blame them as if they weren't "powerful" enough to stop it. Are you kidding?
- christianqchung 3y ago
  Genuine question, what did he do that was so unforgivable? If it's so obvious, you should be able to list what happened in an unambiguous way.
  - mrcode007 3y ago
    https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/self-dealing.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/self-dealing.asp In lesser known places such as Wall St, practices like self dealing are considered illegal. In venture they’re often celebrated. Go figure. I think there’s a general distaste towards setting up networks of companies B, C, D, planning to profit from a success of another company A where a single person controls all the companies and there’s a reasonable expectation of plans to divert business from A towards B, C, D. I don’t know the details but there seems to be some gripe about it. I’m speculating.
ben_w 3y ago
> The botched firing of Sam Altman proves that fancy governance structures are little more than paper shields against the market. The things I saw didn't make any sense, so I can't say that it proves anything other than the existence of hidden information. The board fired him, and they chose a replacement. The replacement sided with Altman. This repeated several times. The board was (reportedly) OK with closing down the entire business on the grounds of their charter. Why didn't the board do that? And why did their chosen replacements, not individually but all of them in sequence, side with the person they fired? My only guess is the board was blackmailed. It's just a guess — it's the only thing I can think of that fits the facts, and I'm well aware that this may be a failure of imagination on my part, and want to emphasise that this shouldn't be construed as anything more than a low-confidence guess by someone who has only seen the same news as everyone else.
- baking 3y ago
  You obviously have no experience with non-profit governance. OpenAI is organized as a public charity which is required to have an independent board. Due to people leaving the board, they were down to six members, three independent directors plus Sam and two of his employees. They had been struggling to add more board members because Sam and the independent directors couldn't agree on who to add. Then Sam concocted an excuse to remove one of the independent directors and lied to board members about his discussions with other board members. I think they had no choice at that point but to fire Sam and remove him from the board. When that turned into a shitshow and they faced personal threats, they resigned to let a new board figure out a way out of this mess. Also, I am not surprised the new board isn't being completely open because they are still probably trying to figure out how to fix their governance problems.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > You obviously have no experience with non-profit governance. Correct! > I think they had no choice at that point but to fire Sam and remove him from the board. When that turned into a shitshow and they faced personal threats, they resigned to let a new board figure out a way out of this mess. As someone with no experience with non-profit governance, this does not seem coherent with (1) they didn't just say that, (2) none of their own choices for replacement CEO were willing to go along with this, and this happened with several replacements in a row. For (1) I'd be willing to just assume good faith on their part, even though it seems odd; but (2) is the one which seems extremely weird to the point that I find myself unable to reconcile. It would also not be compatible with the reports they were willing to close the company on grounds of it being a danger to humanity, but I'm not sure how reliable that news story was.

x0x0 3y ago

I'm not sure why you attribute that as a shield against the market. That seemed much more like an open employee revolt. And I can't think of a governance structure that is going to stop 90% of your employees from saying, for example, we work for Sam Altman, not you idiots...

mousetree 3y ago
An employee revolt due to the market. The employees wanted to cash out in the secondary offering that Sam was setting up before the mess. It was in (market) interest to get him back and get the deal on track.
- dmix 3y ago
  Broad speculation
- x0x0 3y ago
  Employees care about their pay is so reductive as to be meaningless. Any action any employee takes can be labelled as such.
iojrgao 3y ago
Yes, they wanted to work for Sam... because he was arranging a deal to give them liquidity and make them rich. The board was not going to make them rich.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

Because at some point, the plurality of employees do not subordinate their personal desires to the organizational desires. The only organizations for which that is a persistent requirement are typically things like priest hoods

romwell 3y ago
The plurality of employees are not the innovators that made the breakthrough possible in the first place. People are not interchangeable. Most employees may have bills to pay, and will follow the money. The ones that matter most would have different motivation. Of course, of your sole goal is to create a husk that milks the achievement of the original team as long as it lasts and nothing else — sure, you can do that. But the "organizational desires" are still desires of people in the organization. And if those people are the ducks that lay the golden eggs, it might not be the smartest move to ignore them to prioritize the desires of the market for those eggs. The market is all too happy to kill the ducks if it means more, cheaper eggs today. Which is, as the adage goes, why we can't have the good things.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Yeah we agree here, but the problem lies with the team If you hire people who want to cash out then you’ll get people who prioritize prospects for cashing out Set another way they did not focus on the theoretical public mission enough that it was core to the every day being of the organization much like it is for Medicins San Frontiers etc.
  - xwolfi 3y ago
    Medecins Sans Frontieres
    - vdddv 3y ago
      Médecins Sans Frontières
  - insane_dreamer 3y ago
    Most of the people they hired were to work for OpenAI.com which was a pure profit-driven tech company just like any other (and funded by Microsoft). Those who joined the original OpenAI (including its independent board members) were driven by different motivations more in line with research and discovery.

gooseus 3y ago

"Cease quoting bylaws to those of us with yachts"

samstave 3y ago

>>>"The botched firing of Sam Altman proves that fancy governance structures are little more than paper shields against the _market_." - ...Or rather ( $ ) . ( $ ) immediate hindsight eyes...

marcosdumay 3y ago
λ>:t ( $ ) . ( $ ) ( $ ) . ( $ ) :: (a -> b) -> a -> b I really didn't expect the type to be simple, but in hindsight, it's obvious.
- Cacti 3y ago
  Is this a boob joke or a money joke?
  - dev_hugepages 3y ago
    A haskell one
    - samstave 3y ago
      For great justice!

boringuser2 3y ago

I wonder if your lesson is "Sam Altman should/would have been fired but for market forces".

ertgbnm 3y ago
I don't know whether Sam should be fired because no one has published the reason that he was in the first place. All I know is that the first time that the authority of the board was used to make an unpopular decision in what presumably the board members thought was in the interest of protecting the values of OpenAI, there was an insurrection that succeeded in having the board reverse the decision. The board exists to make unpopular decisions that further the core mission of OpenAI as opposed to furthering the bottom line. But the second that the core mission and the bottom line came into conflict with one another, it became clear which one actually controls OpenAI.
ohwellhere 3y ago
The lesson is that "should have been fired" was believed by the people who had power on paper; "should not have been fired" was believed by the people actually had power.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  That just simplifies things a hair too much. Remember, the people who worked at OpenAI, subject to market forces, also supported the return of Altman. Market forces are broad and operate at every level of power, hard and soft.
  - xdavidliu 3y ago
    > Remember, the people who worked at OpenAI, subject to market forces, also supported the return of Altman. I believe that's what your parent comment was actually talking about. I read it saying the people in power on paper was the previous board, and the people actually in power were the employees (which by the way is an interesting inversion of how it usually is)
  - 3y ago

corethree 3y ago

It was botched because the public was too stupid to see how much of a snake Sam Altman is. He was fired from Y-combinator and people were still Universally supporting him on HN. IF people hated him he would've been dropped. Microsoft and everybody else only moved forward because they knew they wouldn't get public backlash. Seems everyone fails to remember their own mob mentality. People here on HN were practically worshipping the guy. Statistically most people commenting here right now were NOT supporting his firing and now you've all flipped and are saying stuff like: "yeah he should've been fired." Seriously? I don't blame the governance. They tried their best. It's the public that screwed up. (Very likely to be YOU, dear reader) Without public support the leadership literally only had enemies at every angle and they have nowhere to turn. Imagine what that must have felt like for those members of the board. Powerful corporations threatening aspects of their livelihoods (of course this happened, you can't force a leader to voluntarily step down without some form of a serious threat) and the entire world hating on them for doing such a "stupid" move as everyone thought of it at the time. I'm ashamed at humanity. I look at this thread and I'm seriously thinking, what in the fuck? It's like everyone forgot what they were doing. And they still twist it to blame them as if they weren't "powerful" enough to stop it. Are you kidding?

christianqchung 3y ago
Genuine question, what did he do that was so unforgivable? If it's so obvious, you should be able to list what happened in an unambiguous way.
- mrcode007 3y ago
  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/self-dealing.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/self-dealing.asp In lesser known places such as Wall St, practices like self dealing are considered illegal. In venture they’re often celebrated. Go figure. I think there’s a general distaste towards setting up networks of companies B, C, D, planning to profit from a success of another company A where a single person controls all the companies and there’s a reasonable expectation of plans to divert business from A towards B, C, D. I don’t know the details but there seems to be some gripe about it. I’m speculating.

ben_w 3y ago

> The botched firing of Sam Altman proves that fancy governance structures are little more than paper shields against the market. The things I saw didn't make any sense, so I can't say that it proves anything other than the existence of hidden information. The board fired him, and they chose a replacement. The replacement sided with Altman. This repeated several times. The board was (reportedly) OK with closing down the entire business on the grounds of their charter. Why didn't the board do that? And why did their chosen replacements, not individually but all of them in sequence, side with the person they fired? My only guess is the board was blackmailed. It's just a guess — it's the only thing I can think of that fits the facts, and I'm well aware that this may be a failure of imagination on my part, and want to emphasise that this shouldn't be construed as anything more than a low-confidence guess by someone who has only seen the same news as everyone else.

baking 3y ago
You obviously have no experience with non-profit governance. OpenAI is organized as a public charity which is required to have an independent board. Due to people leaving the board, they were down to six members, three independent directors plus Sam and two of his employees. They had been struggling to add more board members because Sam and the independent directors couldn't agree on who to add. Then Sam concocted an excuse to remove one of the independent directors and lied to board members about his discussions with other board members. I think they had no choice at that point but to fire Sam and remove him from the board. When that turned into a shitshow and they faced personal threats, they resigned to let a new board figure out a way out of this mess. Also, I am not surprised the new board isn't being completely open because they are still probably trying to figure out how to fix their governance problems.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > You obviously have no experience with non-profit governance. Correct! > I think they had no choice at that point but to fire Sam and remove him from the board. When that turned into a shitshow and they faced personal threats, they resigned to let a new board figure out a way out of this mess. As someone with no experience with non-profit governance, this does not seem coherent with (1) they didn't just say that, (2) none of their own choices for replacement CEO were willing to go along with this, and this happened with several replacements in a row. For (1) I'd be willing to just assume good faith on their part, even though it seems odd; but (2) is the one which seems extremely weird to the point that I find myself unable to reconcile. It would also not be compatible with the reports they were willing to close the company on grounds of it being a danger to humanity, but I'm not sure how reliable that news story was.