13 ms·

The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, the Board found out and snap fired him, which scared the shit out of Microsoft. The prior and new Boar

The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, the Board found out and snap fired him, which scared the shit out of Microsoft. The prior and new Boards both cannot make the allegation that Altman tried to commit a corporate coup, albeit for different reasons[0], so we're never going to get official confirmation of anything. My prediction is that Altman will, unmoored from any sort of accountability, wind up fucking shit up like every god damned SV founder, get fired, and then OpenAI will wind up being eaten by Microsoft for a song. [0] Old board: Potential defamation litigation, new board: they were literally put in there by Altman to not threaten him

catchnear4321 3y ago
> My prediction is that Altman will, unmoored from any sort of accountability, wind up fucking shit up like every god damned SV founder, get fired, and then OpenAI will wind up being eaten by Microsoft for a song. this is why microsoft loves sama. of course the firing spooked them. it would have seriously soured the trajectory. so much cleaner to let sama take the wheel. everyone important goes home rich, or at least happy, they think. ms gets a gold-painted goose. sama will undoubtedly get some form of gold plated escape hatch, parachute, life raft, etc.
fallingknife 3y ago
> My prediction is that Altman will, unmoored from any sort of accountability, wind up fucking shit up like every god damned SV founder, get fired Who has this happened to except for Travis kalanick at Uber?
- the_mar 3y ago
  for posterity: - Steve Jobs - Sandy Lerner - Noah Glass - Mark Pinkus - Kyle Vogt
- nostrademons 3y ago
  Parker Conrad at Zenefits, Jack Dorsey at Twitter, Andrew Mason at Groupon (but not before cashing his shares out at IPO!), Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack at Cisco, Steve Jobs at Apple. I have a lot of confidence in Altman's ability to extricate himself before getting fired, but this is a very common Silicon Valley story.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    With Adam Neumann at WeWork currently in the process of doing it again with Flow and AH giving him $350M at a $1B value months before it even commenced operations (what the actual fuck?)
    - dralley 3y ago
      Some people deserve to lose their money.
Retric 3y ago
OpenAI is a nonprofit which changes most motivations for the board. They are ultimately tasked with preserving the mission rather than profit which cases Altman in a very poor light here. There is a for profit subsidiary which Microsoft invested 13 billion in, but that can't return money to board members only Altman and it's investors.
- staplers 3y ago
  OpenAI is a nonprofit Do people really still believe this?
  - Retric 3y ago
    The US government does, which is what matters.
    - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
      I am surprised that using non profit status to build a business and transferring/converting to for profit down the line isn’t considered a form of tax evasion.
      - Retric 3y ago
        It's all about what happens to the money. Many non profits generate revenue from operating a business rather than gift giving. Sesame workshop's deal with HBO and various merchandising deals with Elmo etc on a day to day basis looks a lot like a business, they just reinvest that money into content rather than handing money to investors. Ultimately, most non profits would prefer a giant endowment which can provide them a low risk income stream. Which is why breaking off such ventures is surprisingly common, most of them don't revive 16 billion in outside funding and such media attention. But, again the important bit is what happens to the money / resources. Buy or sell a building, business, or other asset at fair market value and everything is fine.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    So is IKEA.
drexlspivey 3y ago
> The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, the Board found out and snap fired him Who elects the board in a non-profit? Who did sama go to to get them removed?
- erinnh 3y ago
  The story was that Altman lied to specific board members to have other removed.
  - nextaccountic 3y ago
    Where did you see this? Do you have any links? Why didn't the board member(s) in question reveal the story in full when they had the chance?
    - erinnh 3y ago
      I read it here on Hacker News. I dont have any links of it at hand, there were way too many threads about the drama for me to go looking for it now. Cant answer your last question. As said, that was just the story that I heard here on HN.
- changoplatanero 3y ago
  There were six people on the board and it was 3 vs 3 for along time. Sam was trying to get one of the other 3 to flip to his side to get a majority but then the other side brought in Ilya and they had a majority and removed Sam.
  - baking 3y ago
    He was trying to convince one of the independent directors to resign, leaving him with a 3-2 majority on the board which would be illegal under California non-profit law.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  Usually in a non-profit the board itself elects new members if necessary. It depends on the charter.
nostrademons 3y ago
Nah, I think Microsoft will end up buying some form of assets off of OpenAI (it's a non-profit with odd corporate governance that Altman doesn't own stock in, so I don't think they'll buy the whole company) for an extremely exorbitant price. Altman will put in some ambitious but clueless Microsoft manager to run it and move on to his next thing. Then it'll turn out that Gen AI is dramatically overhyped and the real-world utility is far less than expected. Shit'll get fucked up, people will forget about it, and Microsoft will write down their investment by a large margin - kinda like Hotmail, and Skype, and Nokia, and Minecraft, and what's starting to happen to GitHub and LinkedIn. And so it goes, a classic Silicon Valley love story. But I have enough faith in Altman's ability to fuck shit up without facing personal consequences that I'm pretty sure he'll navigate some sort of sale before everything goes south.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    Nah, Steve Jobs would need to be alive for that, and they haven't come out with iResurrection yet. The public hasn't really thrown themselves into reverence for Apple since the last Jobs product announcement. Even the Apple Watch's reception was kinda lukewarm. They make good hardware, but they aren't cool hype machines the way they were a decade+ ago.
    - jorl17 3y ago
      What about Apple Silicon? Not a product per se, but...
      - nostrademons 3y ago
        I think the reaction to it was qualitatively different from the iPhone or even iPod/iPad. The M1 is a great chip, and everybody acknowledged it as a great chip. Nobody claimed it would create a whole new category of products, or a whole new ecosystem. Nobody quit their job to become an M1 developer. Nobody started forking out hundreds of dollar per hour for people who did. In Clayton Christenson terms, it was a sustaining innovation rather than a disruptive one.
YetAnotherNick 3y ago
Why was Brockman removed from board and demoted? For Sam, I could think of 100 reasons. And why didn't board tell this to anyone in the company after accusing Sam in the PR. Board members were so publicly humiliated and I find it weird that they just sat there in silence but at the same not giving up. Their career is surely affected by this unprofessional behavior.
armchairhacker 3y ago
But - Why did the board snap decide to fire him and butcher it badly? - Why didn't the board say he tried to manipulate them from the beginning? They only gave an explanation when they were literally forced to, and even then details are trickling out (like Mira's complaints). Even after reading the NYTimes article, I still don't understand why the board decided to go straight to firing him.
- layer8 3y ago
  They probably thought Altman's character was unsalvageable and better move quick before he gets wind of it. They didn't expect the OpenAI employees and Microsoft to back Altman that strongly. They also seem to have misjudged Brockman and Muriati in particular.
baking 3y ago
>While the investigation cleared Altman to reclaim his board seat, he said he “did learn a lot from this experience,” expressing remorse for one incident in particular involving a board member he did not name. >That appeared to be a reference to former OpenAI director Helen Toner, a researcher at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a Georgetown think tank. After she published a research analysis that criticized the speed of OpenAI’s product launch decisions, Altman reportedly tried to remove her from the board. “I think I could have handled that situation with more grace and care—I apologize for that,” he said. https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-is-reinstated-to-openais-board/ https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-is-reinstated-to-open...
- ethbr1 3y ago
  It's always magnanimous to apologize for bad things after you've gotten away with them.
  - apwell23 3y ago
    he doesn't think its a bad thing though. Its just a thing you are supposed to say.
    - paradox460 3y ago
      Narcissists prayer. I'm sorry you were upset by thst
nextaccountic 3y ago
> The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, Where did you see that? Why didn't the board say so when they had the chance?

catchnear4321 3y ago

> My prediction is that Altman will, unmoored from any sort of accountability, wind up fucking shit up like every god damned SV founder, get fired, and then OpenAI will wind up being eaten by Microsoft for a song. this is why microsoft loves sama. of course the firing spooked them. it would have seriously soured the trajectory. so much cleaner to let sama take the wheel. everyone important goes home rich, or at least happy, they think. ms gets a gold-painted goose. sama will undoubtedly get some form of gold plated escape hatch, parachute, life raft, etc.

fallingknife 3y ago

> My prediction is that Altman will, unmoored from any sort of accountability, wind up fucking shit up like every god damned SV founder, get fired Who has this happened to except for Travis kalanick at Uber?

the_mar 3y ago
for posterity: - Steve Jobs - Sandy Lerner - Noah Glass - Mark Pinkus - Kyle Vogt
nostrademons 3y ago
Parker Conrad at Zenefits, Jack Dorsey at Twitter, Andrew Mason at Groupon (but not before cashing his shares out at IPO!), Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack at Cisco, Steve Jobs at Apple. I have a lot of confidence in Altman's ability to extricate himself before getting fired, but this is a very common Silicon Valley story.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  With Adam Neumann at WeWork currently in the process of doing it again with Flow and AH giving him $350M at a $1B value months before it even commenced operations (what the actual fuck?)
  - dralley 3y ago
    Some people deserve to lose their money.

Retric 3y ago

OpenAI is a nonprofit which changes most motivations for the board. They are ultimately tasked with preserving the mission rather than profit which cases Altman in a very poor light here. There is a for profit subsidiary which Microsoft invested 13 billion in, but that can't return money to board members only Altman and it's investors.

staplers 3y ago
OpenAI is a nonprofit Do people really still believe this?
- Retric 3y ago
  The US government does, which is what matters.
  - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
    I am surprised that using non profit status to build a business and transferring/converting to for profit down the line isn’t considered a form of tax evasion.
    - Retric 3y ago
      It's all about what happens to the money. Many non profits generate revenue from operating a business rather than gift giving. Sesame workshop's deal with HBO and various merchandising deals with Elmo etc on a day to day basis looks a lot like a business, they just reinvest that money into content rather than handing money to investors. Ultimately, most non profits would prefer a giant endowment which can provide them a low risk income stream. Which is why breaking off such ventures is surprisingly common, most of them don't revive 16 billion in outside funding and such media attention. But, again the important bit is what happens to the money / resources. Buy or sell a building, business, or other asset at fair market value and everything is fine.
- bombcar 3y ago
  So is IKEA.

drexlspivey 3y ago

> The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, the Board found out and snap fired him Who elects the board in a non-profit? Who did sama go to to get them removed?

erinnh 3y ago
The story was that Altman lied to specific board members to have other removed.
- nextaccountic 3y ago
  Where did you see this? Do you have any links? Why didn't the board member(s) in question reveal the story in full when they had the chance?
  - erinnh 3y ago
    I read it here on Hacker News. I dont have any links of it at hand, there were way too many threads about the drama for me to go looking for it now. Cant answer your last question. As said, that was just the story that I heard here on HN.
changoplatanero 3y ago
There were six people on the board and it was 3 vs 3 for along time. Sam was trying to get one of the other 3 to flip to his side to get a majority but then the other side brought in Ilya and they had a majority and removed Sam.
- baking 3y ago
  He was trying to convince one of the independent directors to resign, leaving him with a 3-2 majority on the board which would be illegal under California non-profit law.
mr_toad 3y ago
Usually in a non-profit the board itself elects new members if necessary. It depends on the charter.

nostrademons 3y ago

Nah, I think Microsoft will end up buying some form of assets off of OpenAI (it's a non-profit with odd corporate governance that Altman doesn't own stock in, so I don't think they'll buy the whole company) for an extremely exorbitant price. Altman will put in some ambitious but clueless Microsoft manager to run it and move on to his next thing. Then it'll turn out that Gen AI is dramatically overhyped and the real-world utility is far less than expected. Shit'll get fucked up, people will forget about it, and Microsoft will write down their investment by a large margin - kinda like Hotmail, and Skype, and Nokia, and Minecraft, and what's starting to happen to GitHub and LinkedIn. And so it goes, a classic Silicon Valley love story. But I have enough faith in Altman's ability to fuck shit up without facing personal consequences that I'm pretty sure he'll navigate some sort of sale before everything goes south.

Dalewyn 3y ago
[flagged]
- nostrademons 3y ago
  Nah, Steve Jobs would need to be alive for that, and they haven't come out with iResurrection yet. The public hasn't really thrown themselves into reverence for Apple since the last Jobs product announcement. Even the Apple Watch's reception was kinda lukewarm. They make good hardware, but they aren't cool hype machines the way they were a decade+ ago.
  - jorl17 3y ago
    What about Apple Silicon? Not a product per se, but...
    - nostrademons 3y ago
      I think the reaction to it was qualitatively different from the iPhone or even iPod/iPad. The M1 is a great chip, and everybody acknowledged it as a great chip. Nobody claimed it would create a whole new category of products, or a whole new ecosystem. Nobody quit their job to become an M1 developer. Nobody started forking out hundreds of dollar per hour for people who did. In Clayton Christenson terms, it was a sustaining innovation rather than a disruptive one.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

Why was Brockman removed from board and demoted? For Sam, I could think of 100 reasons. And why didn't board tell this to anyone in the company after accusing Sam in the PR. Board members were so publicly humiliated and I find it weird that they just sat there in silence but at the same not giving up. Their career is surely affected by this unprofessional behavior.

armchairhacker 3y ago

But - Why did the board snap decide to fire him and butcher it badly? - Why didn't the board say he tried to manipulate them from the beginning? They only gave an explanation when they were literally forced to, and even then details are trickling out (like Mira's complaints). Even after reading the NYTimes article, I still don't understand why the board decided to go straight to firing him.

layer8 3y ago
They probably thought Altman's character was unsalvageable and better move quick before he gets wind of it. They didn't expect the OpenAI employees and Microsoft to back Altman that strongly. They also seem to have misjudged Brockman and Muriati in particular.

baking 3y ago

>While the investigation cleared Altman to reclaim his board seat, he said he “did learn a lot from this experience,” expressing remorse for one incident in particular involving a board member he did not name. >That appeared to be a reference to former OpenAI director Helen Toner, a researcher at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a Georgetown think tank. After she published a research analysis that criticized the speed of OpenAI’s product launch decisions, Altman reportedly tried to remove her from the board. “I think I could have handled that situation with more grace and care—I apologize for that,” he said. https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-is-reinstated-to-openais-board/ https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-is-reinstated-to-open...

ethbr1 3y ago
It's always magnanimous to apologize for bad things after you've gotten away with them.
- apwell23 3y ago
  he doesn't think its a bad thing though. Its just a thing you are supposed to say.
  - paradox460 3y ago
    Narcissists prayer. I'm sorry you were upset by thst

nextaccountic 3y ago

> The answer is that Altman tried to get the Board removed, Where did you see that? Why didn't the board say so when they had the chance?