I'll just point to the theory that they didn't want to work for a megacorp creating tools for other megacorps (or worse) and actually believed in OpenAI's (init

I'll just point to the theory that they didn't want to work for a megacorp creating tools for other megacorps (or worse) and actually believed in OpenAI's (initial) mission to further humanity. The tools are going to be used by deep pocketed entities for their purposes, the compute resources necessary require that to be the case for the foreseeable future.