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Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

• mmastrac 2y ago
  I don't think there's anything new here: https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-running-openais-startup-fund-2024-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-running-openais-start... FTA: > "Sam didn't inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company," she said. Previously: > "Jacob Vespers does not exist to our knowledge," Madhav Dutt, a spokesperson for OpenAI, said. When asked how this individual came to be listed as in control of the company's Startup Fund, Dutt said that the documents filed with the California Secretary of State were faked. > "The document itself is not legitimate," Dutt told Business Insider. "It's completely fabricated." Dutt declined to elaborate on how exactly fabricated documents came to be filed with the state of California, he would only say repeatedly that the documents were "illegitimate."
  • NotSammyHagar 2y ago
    https://archive.is/qAklm https://archive.is/qAklm
  • jph00 2y ago
    > * I don't think there's anything new here* The information about lying to the board about it is new, AFAIK.
    • adastra22 2y ago
      Lying to the board was the reason given for his firing even at the time. They just declined to elaborate back then.
  • Havoc 2y ago
    Once again he was GP of the startup fund, not an LP. (At least not to my knowledge) Unless there was some sort of carry or other compensation I’d say it’s pretty fair to describe that as not owned. A bit like a trustee wouldn’t claim to own the trust fund. The beneficiaries do
    • Nevermark 2y ago
      So why did he carefully not say that. To the board, FFS. A trustee who wasn't playing games would simply say they were the trustee.
    • dragonwriter 2y ago
      A GP is a partner and as such has an financial interest in the success of the fund. In fact, they have a greater financial exposure than LPs, since they have unlimited liability for the partnership’s obligations (how much upside they have depends on the partnership agreement, its possible that LPs have all of that and a GP that's not also an LP would not — but just having downside exposure is still a serious financial interest.)
      • IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
        you are right, but the GP does have usually some kind of interest. Usually 1%. Yes, its tiny, but its there.
      • Havoc 2y ago
        >GP is a partner and as such has an financial interest in the success of the fund Sure there will be some stake attached to GP, that may be a national dollar or it may be more depending on structuring. We don't know either way. My point is based on knowing nothing more than he is a GP we can't conclude "he owned the OpenAI startup fund" which is verbatim what is being claimed in the article and what I objected to. >how much upside they have depends on the partnership agreemen ...right which is what I meant with "some sort of carry or other compensation".
    • morgante 2y ago
      1. Why do you assume he wouldn't receive carry? Carry is standard so the presumption should be that he receives carry unless otherwise clarified. 2. GP commitments are also common. LPs want GPs to have "skin in the game" and I think it's absolutely reasonable to claim the GP "owns" the fund (just not as a sole owner).
    • FireBeyond 2y ago
  • smarm52 2y ago
    A lot of allegations, but no evidence. Seems like the article is just there to drive clicks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also the archive for that article: https://archive.ph/qAklm https://archive.ph/qAklm
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• mathattack 2y ago
  https://archive.is/LpDuJ https://archive.is/LpDuJ
  • jeda96 2y ago
    Thanks
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
  Maybe before saying you are going to align super human intelligence, you should first try to align merely human intelligence.
  • proc0 2y ago
    Lol true and it got me thinking maybe AGI is what will finally align humanity together, whether its because it smart enough to fix the problem or dangerous enough it will require everyone's cooperation to stop it.
    • labster 2y ago
      I doubt either will happen. Climate change was dangerous enough that it required everyone’s cooperation to stop it in the 1980s, and here we are still in denial. My only hope for the future is that multiple AGIs are just as dysfunctional as humans are.
      • kirth_gersen 2y ago
        Evil AI Overlord: "Silly humans! The only way to defeat me is to stop being bigoted and to transition to clean energy!" Humanity Collectively: "Oh no! Our only weakness!"
      • int_19h 2y ago
        If they are just as dysfunctional, they're going to start fighting wars against each other eventually, and will need cannon fodder for that just as human rulers do, no? ~
    • gtirloni 2y ago
      > it will require everyone's cooperation to stop it Does this mythological AGI live in datacenters that we can shutdown or in some 5th dimension out of reach to us?
      • latentsea 2y ago
        It's a resilient, hyperscale distributed system. Just like humanity.
• carimura 2y ago
  is it just me or is it hard to trust Business Insider at this point...? It seems to show its true colors over and over again as a crappy outlet just trying to survive on clicks in a post-Internet world that has made it pretty unprofitable to do actual deep journalism.
  • ubiquitysc 2y ago
    I mean this is just quoting an interview from a podcast so it's pretty easy to verify.
  • Teever 2y ago
    What's with the recent attacks on Business Insider of all publications?
    • tky 2y ago
      Possibly clickbaity fluff pieces like this: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-glue-pizza-i-tried-it-2024-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-glue-pizza-i-tried... Stuff like this really doesn’t serve them well as a “serious” outlet. I follow the author of the fluff on social and I found the Altman article interesting, but I’m less and less amused with filler pieces and suspect others are too.
      • valicord 2y ago
        Lest anyone thinks this is a recent trend, here's an amazing piece of journalism they published 10 years ago https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-cars-in-facebook-parking-lot-2014-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-cars-in-facebook-park...
    • mlindner 2y ago
      I've been attacking Business Insider for many years. They're effectively a show biz tabloid, but business oriented. They frequently misreport things and write stories that are effectively "clickbait for executives".
• cm2012 2y ago
  If that's it, sounds like sour grapes.
• mi_lk 2y ago
  I mean at this point what sama has exposed himself pretty much aligns with what his 'enemies' say about him. Good job at presenting himself otherwise up until 6 months ago I guess.
  • gitfan86 2y ago
    He has done an impressive job over the past few months in interviews where he says lots of word with zero substance.
    • latenightcoding 2y ago
      have you read his blogs? he has always been like this.
    • jjulius 2y ago
      This might not be the most productive comment, I'll admit, but I genuinely feel this way about most interviews/blog posts from execs/leaders/etc. in the startup/tech space.
    • darajava 2y ago
      And very confidently too. Similar to his product.
    • sheepscreek 2y ago
      When executives are in broadcast mode, their delivery is tweaked for emotional impact on the listeners. They try to inspire, motivate and get their points across using concepts well understood by their audience. If a leader’s speech is coming off as too corporate and hand-wavy, they have failed to read their audience and adapt their messaging to its level.
  • meowface 2y ago
    >I mean at this point what sama has exposed himself pretty much aligns with what his 'enemies' say about him. Where?
• philsquared_ 2y ago
  Justified or not doesn't really matter. If your entire company threatens to quit then you made the wrong choice. Hopefully many of the old board is gone because a blunder of that magnitude shows extreme disconnect.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • croes 2y ago
    If you threaten to quit to protect a liar then you made the wrong choice.
    • philsquared_ 2y ago
      Better to have a company than not have one right?
      • tinycombinator 2y ago
        Sure, for the beneficiaries.
      • reducesuffering 2y ago
        Humanity would prefer no cigarette companies but sure, Philip Morris employees and shareholders would love to still have it. Remember that "OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity." If their for-profit arm is obstructing that...
        • stale2002 2y ago
          Look if you think the whole company should be shutdown, then say that. But don't pretend like any of the employees are going to go along with that. Just admit that the goal is to actively sabotage the company and shut it all down. Then, all those employees can understand what you want, and they can go work for Microsoft instead, doing the exact same job that they were doing before, but now without the board sabotaging the company.
• hipadev23 2y ago
  I’m gonna side with sama here. Toner and others who voted to fire are type of people who spend their entire career in meetings and political maneuvering and not a single day actually delivering results.
  • nradov 2y ago
    There seems to be a misunderstanding. The OpenAI board was responsible for maintaining adherence to their charter, not for delivering results. This isn't a startup company that is supposed to generate returns for shareholders, or even necessarily ship products.
  • 000ooo000 2y ago
    They're all cut from the same cloth. Believing anything said by anyone at that level is naive.
  • gordon_freeman 2y ago
    so in that regards most of the Board of Directors at companies do not have a say in hiring or firing a CEO then? Because they come from a different background than what a CEO at given company spends his days on.
  • elicksaur 2y ago
    I’m gonna side with no one. Reading in depth on these things and stanning a side is about as worth while as reality tv fandom.
  • apsec112 2y ago
    So the idea is that what Ilya Sutskever does is "meetings and political maneuvering", while what Sam Altman does is "delivering results"? That sounds rather strange....
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • hipadev23 2y ago
      Yes. Ilya is as useful as Google’s AI folks. Smart yes, cannot deliver a useful product to save his life.
• hrdwdmrbl 2y ago
  This telling by Toner has the ring of truth to it over the reason for Sam's ouster. It matches. Whatever I think of Sam personally, I would likely have done the same thing in her shoes. The CEO lying to and deceiving the board multiple times is a pretty serious red line.
  • EA-3167 2y ago
    It's also a similar reason that Sam was fired from Y Combinator. None of this should be new, it's just when there's money on the line people's memories get as fuzzy as their morals.
    • sixQuarks 2y ago
      I didn’t know he was fired from y combinator, what were the details?
      • bmitc 2y ago
        Explicit details were never released because for some reason people seem to like watching Altman fall his way up the ladder.
        • boringg 2y ago
          Its crazy that you can be fired from that role and make sure everyone covers their tracks so you can go do it again elsewhere.
      • reducesuffering 2y ago
        Only speculation: "In 2019, Altman was asked to resign from Y Combinator after partners alleged he had put personal projects, including OpenAI, ahead of his duties as president, said people familiar with the matter." https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-protected-by-silicon-valley-friends-f3efcf68 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-protected-by-s... Regardless, this is another in a recent string of blows to YC's reputation for making people believe Sama moved on when in reality he was fired. What do you call making people believe something that's knowingly not true? Deception?
• snowwrestler 2y ago
  Kind of ironic that people are jumping in here to defend Sam Altman on the message board of Y Combinator, which also fired him from an executive leadership role for similar reasons.
  • dmix 2y ago
    Assuming Helen's account is fully accurate, of course. The same person who was pushed out after her coup attempt failed. Which was very likely motivated by much more than Sam lying as she has stated in other articles about how she wants AI she regulated by gov, how GPT shouldn't have been released to the public because it's dangerous, and her interim CEO she pushed as Sams temporary replacement who made statements about wanting to pause AI development for safety reasons.
    • wyldfire 2y ago
      > pushed out If what she said was true, I'd leave the board if I were in her position. I would understand why they decided to take him back but decide that it's not worth working with someone who can't be trusted.
    • FireBeyond 2y ago
      > Sam lying as she has stated in other articles about how she wants AI she regulated by gov Hell, Sam wants AI regulated by government... ... after OAI is well-established and locked in, of course. A little ladder-pulling and regulatory capture is something he's entirely aligned upon.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • Terr_ 2y ago
        > A little ladder-pulling and regulatory capture is something he's entirely aligned upon. I'd say it should be the default-expectation for anybody operating as a professional Venture Capitalist these days, and AFAIK there's no personal record to indicate otherwise.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• stubish 2y ago
  Now I'm curious as to the reasoning Sam got back in. The board is there for a purpose and has legal duties. Did they have some duty to cave in when the company was threatened, overriding their oversight duties that caused them to sack Sam in the first place? Did they decide they just got it wrong? It seems pretty wobbly, and makes me question if boards are useful at all for many companies in today's world (and what other structure could protect shareholder interests, when the majority shareholders are passive investment funds?)
  • dbuser99 2y ago
    Financial rewards. Money. Investors could not take the risk of disturbing the value of their investment. It is that simple
  • threeseed 2y ago
    It's because of Satya. He offered to move Sam and whoever supported him under the Microsoft wing with an independent for-profit company with the same access to unlimited compute that they needed to train their models. With this looming over their heads the employees/shareholders ultimately had to choose between (a) staying at OpenAI without Sam, having the company lose their deal with Microsoft and likely folding, (b) moving to Microsoft with Sam or (c) allowing Sam to come back.
    • tsunamifury 2y ago
      And now it looks like they will fold under Sam and Microsoft still will be able to scoop up the talent and tech.
      • Centigonal 2y ago
        The Matt Levine column on "Who Controls OpenAI?" becomes more and more relevant each day. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-who-controls-openai https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-...
    • disqard 2y ago
• protastus 2y ago
  Telling almost no one in advance was intended to protect the board from Altman's interference but put them in an indefensible situation. Alone against very rich, well connected people, without even a narrative to offer.
  • kyrra 2y ago
    I think this is the big thing, they did this and were unable to publicly explain why they did it. If you are going to do something like this, you should have your ducks in a row and be ready to defend it.
  • jfoster 2y ago
    It feels like one press release may have changed the outcome entirely. Shouldn't the board be capable of agreeing on a press release among themselves?
    • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
      Totally agree. The initial press release made it sound like Altman was guilty of borderline illegal malfeasance, which wasn't true. Without any more information, the world was left to speculate about what happened, and it came across to many as more of a "power struggle" or grudge match than fundamental concerns about the direction of OpenAI. While in retrospect I think the board's actions may have been warranted, their communication was absolutely atrocious.
      • rl3 2y ago
        >Totally agree. The initial press release made it sound like Altman was guilty of borderline illegal malfeasance, which wasn't true. This sounds bad enough to my layperson ears: "Sam didn't inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company," she said. I'm not a lawyer. Anyone with expertise care to clarify? Also, wow: https://medium.com/@leagueplayer220/sam-altman-may-have-committed-fraud-at-loopt-could-the-openai-firing-be-a-similar-incident-fe316d4900e7 https://medium.com/@leagueplayer220/sam-altman-may-have-comm...
• I_am_tiberius 2y ago
  I posted this in the past but these 2 videos from over a year ago made me suspicious of Sam Altman already before his OpenAI firing. - About world coin security (he says people are welcome never to sign up if they are worried about security): https://youtu.be/4HFyXYvMwFc?t=3201 https://youtu.be/4HFyXYvMwFc?t=3201 - He doesn't "intuitively feel why we need" decentralized finance (this was before the Silicon Valley bank disaster): https://youtu.be/57OU18cogJI?feature=shared&t=1015 https://youtu.be/57OU18cogJI?feature=shared&t=1015
• Aunche 2y ago
  I think there is a very good chance this is true, but it also paints the picture of the board being incompetent and incapable of confrontation. They could have filed formal complaints, mandated increased scrutiny, handed off Sam's responsibilities to other people, or threatened legal action. Instead, they attempted a secret coup, which of course makes Sam look like the underdog
  • _giorgio_ 2y ago
    Obviously. They were just waiting for an excuse to fire him, and by chance they accused him of the same "errors" the had him fired before.
  • pdonis 2y ago
    > it also paints the picture of the board being incompetent and incapable of confrontation Yes. Nobody involved in this comes out looking very good IMO.
    • dylan604 2y ago
      Rarely does anyone in situations like this have no fault. It's all degrees of wrong really
  • akozak 2y ago
    I've seen the "coup" framing a lot I just don't see how that's justified. They're the board of directors! Hiring and firing the CEO is core to the job (as is maintaining mission alignment, in the nonprofit world).
    • HDThoreaun 2y ago
      Vince Mcmahon literally owns WWE but the board fired him. Of course he voted in a new board at the next election but I dont think it's unheard of boards to vote against their founders. Sam is a founder of openAI even if he never controlled the board, and they tried to take control from him.
      • 2y ago
• jongjong 2y ago
  Well I think there are mostly bad people at the top of all these big companies. Lying to bad people is good so I support Sam Altman. I'm tired of the elite trusting each other and the negative externalities of that so I support elites lying to their hearts' content. Nothing wrong with a little lie here or there. It keeps things interesting. Anyway, it's not like the currency economic reality is grounded in truth... Is lying actually lying if the underlying social reality itself is built on lies? I think they cancel out.
  • Atotalnoob 2y ago
    Sam is at the top? He is “bad people” by your logic. Lying is not good. Lying to your manager is always a fireable offense.
• bmitc 2y ago
  What is still bizarre is how the board brought him back. I just don't understand that from any angle. It is very clear that he lied and schemed. So why was there any issue? He had no power once fired. If another company wants to hire him, fine. If he wants to make platitudes on Twitter, who cares? Employees threatened to leave? Let them. I imagine many of them wouldn't, and if they did, you could just rehire and find a proper CEO. It's likely that the employees who would have stayed would have been the ones you want to keep anyway. So why would you rehire him and then resign? Why not leave him fired and resign? Why did Microsoft care so much about Altman? They didn't have a board seat, so too bad so sad. They should have had no sway. If they want OpenAI, then they can buy it. Why would they even want Altman to come to their company? What possible value could Altman bring to Microsoft? Just none of it makes any sense. In fact, the most clear thing is Altman's negative behavior and mode of operation. I remember his very loud, awshucks pronouncements of having no shares in OpenAI. Yea, right. A career VC setup a new company structure or structures where he wouldn't benefit at all financially. In another timeline, OpenAI firing him, naming an interim CEO, ignoring all else, and then hiring a new CEO would have all gone just fine. I don't know why Microsoft and others made a huge kerfuffle over it. And I also don't know why the board released such a cryptic press release when they could have provided details. I just can't wrap my head around any of it, even letting in conspiracy theory lines. Lol. It just makes no sense and gives me a feeling that no one involved has any clue about anything, including Satya Nadella.
  • nullspace 2y ago
    100% agree. I don’t care about OpenAI or the members of its board at all, one bit. What I did see was so much incompetence at the one thing I expect a board to be at least okay at. Hiring and firing. For that alone, I think the board reshuffle was good. Regardless of who you support in all of this.
    • juped 2y ago
      It clearly wasn't good; the Altman-control system failed, and was replaced with not even the pretense of an Altman-control system. Sure, the rectification of names is an improvement in a sense; what is actually needed is a working Altman-control system.
• goodluckchuck 2y ago
  > constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company That sounds criminal.
  • boringg 2y ago
    self dealing isnt criminal its just super suspect. Good question though - actively telling the board a bald faced lie, is that criminal? Certainly justifies getting fired.
• breck 2y ago
  > "telling us they had no belief that he could or would change, no point in giving him feedback" This is awful behavior. Never ever stop talking. Never ever stop giving feedback. When someone says something along the lines of "the other person wasn't listening so I had to take action against them", they are almost always lying. (They are probably lying to themselves most of all). The other person usually is listening, it's just that they aren't snapping to right away (often for very valid reasons). I don't know what the word is for this type of behavior ("snakish?"), but I would be wary of those executives.
  • Centigonal 2y ago
    I agree that you should never stop giving feedback, but if you have an advisory or managerial duty toward someone, and you don't take action when your feedback is being consistently ignored by that person, then when do you take action (if ever)?
    • breck 2y ago
      > then when do you take action (if ever)? I think you _never_ take secretive action. You don't go behind someone's back. They should have said, "Sam, we think you are wrong, we think we are right, and we think you are not listening, so we are going to take this to the board." They should not have conspired. Don't conspire. Also, in my experience, in a situation like this where sides A and B see things differently, and side B can't convince side A they are wrong, _both_ sides are usually wrong. People can easily see how others are wrong, but often find it harder to see how their position is also wrong. The solution is to keep talking it out. Until that correct position C is found. When Side B is so confident that they are right and take secret action against Side A, not only do they still get things wrong (because the still yet to be discovered idea C is the correct position), but they are guilty of dishonest behavior, as those that conspired against SamA are here.
      • Centigonal 2y ago
        I think this is a very reasonable stance for most situations. IDK what the dynamics inside OpenAI are like. In nearly all scenarios, I would agree with you, but if sama is really a master manipulator like some people are saying, then some level of secrecy/conspiracy might have been necessary to escalate to the board without being pushed out of the company first. Let's take an extreme hypothetical where Sam instructs you, an OpenAI exec, to take Action A, and says, "I'm a very influential person. If you don't do what I say or if you make me look bad, I'll use my connections to make sure you never work in the Valley again." Responding with "I disagree, and I'm going to go to the board about this" might be incompatible with future employment, especially if the board doesn't take your side. Going to the press might also be a disaster given sama's history of emerging unscathed from Worldcoin, his sister's allegations, etc. The best choice for most people is probably to just stay quiet and do as you're told. Later, when the board comes to you investigating claims of abusive behavior, you might share with them but request anonymity, because you know that Sam is indeed a very influential person; if the board decides not to fire him (or if they do and it doesn't work), you will be ruined. In this situation, all the board can do without breaking anonymity is to say, "we have investigated and discovered incidences of abusive behavior, and for that we are removing you as CEO."
• sergiotapia 2y ago
  Any trust Altman had has been eroded over the last six months. He's very shifty, and just not trustworthy.
• 1024core 2y ago
  > As staff threatened to quit and speculation swirled that Microsoft may poach Altman's team from OpenAI and hire him directly, the company's board brought back Altman as CEO less than a week later. To me, this is an important part of the story too, which Toner doesn't go into. I wonder why?
  • tbrownaw 2y ago
    I'd assume that being the board of an empty company somehow looked worse than being kicked off the board.
  • BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    It does make it appear that the OpenAI staff were acting in protest of Sam Altman's, which seems to go against what's been happening recently with the "real brains that understand AI/LLM/ML" leaving in a procession.
  • cma 2y ago
    It was self interest (against a threatened harm, not for additional money); she went into it at the time: > “He was trying to claim that it would be illegal for us not to resign immediately, because if the company fell apart we would be in breach of our fiduciary duties,” Toner said. “But OpenAI is a very unusual organization, and the nonprofit mission — to ensure [artificial general intelligence] benefits all of humanity — comes first.” > Toner said she viewed the lawyer’s words as an “intimidation tactic” — and replied that Altman’s removal would “actually be consistent with the mission” of the nonprofit to ensure AI safety above an individual company’s success. https://nypost.com/2023/12/08/business/ex-openai-board-member-helen-toner-reveals-sam-altman-drama/ https://nypost.com/2023/12/08/business/ex-openai-board-membe... https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/helen-toner-openai-board-2e4031ef https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/helen-toner-openai-board-2e4031e...
• jacknews 2y ago
  So we now have a lying psychopath in charge of the most advanced AI, and no safety team to blow a whistle. I don't think legal restrictions on AI or AI research are plausible, but perhaps we should have some licensing and psychological, ethical requirements for people owning and directing AI development.
  • lawn 2y ago
    Luckily LLMs seems quite limited and are far away from AGI.
  • int_19h 2y ago
    Imposed and enforced by whom, if not the law?
    • deleted 2y ago
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  • imiric 2y ago
    We've had lying psychopaths in charge of entire countries, and we put them in power. This is no different. We do need strict regulation of technology in general on a global scale, but I don't foresee that happening anytime soon. Enjoy the ride :)
• kazinator 2y ago
  > Sam didn't inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company That seems exactly like the kind of thing you would keep to yourself just to see the looks on their faces when they try to kick you out.
• deleted 2y ago
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• jononomo 2y ago
  Paul Graham has said that one of the things he likes best about Sam Altman is that he figures out ways to "hack" things, and specified that he didn't mean programming, but rather systems, institutions, people, etc. As for me, I'd prefer to see Paul Graham running Open AI.
  • nicce 2y ago
    That is called as social engineering. Is that a good thing, to be able to manipulate people like that?
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • fallingfrog 2y ago
    There’s a word for being adept at “hacking” people and institutions, and it’s called being manipulative. It’s a dark triad sociopathic trait.
  • throwcon 2y ago
    Is that a good thing?
    • adastra22 2y ago
      Paul Graham is British. That was actually an insult.
      • jononomo 2y ago
        PG described it as a good thing -- apparently that is now a question ("what have you hacked?) that they ask people who want to join Y Combinator.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• ffhhj 2y ago
  > She said that made it "basically impossible" for the board to understand if the safety measures were sufficient or if any changes were needed. It's scary that he now wants to pivot to nuclear power.
• tbrownaw 2y ago
  > She said, "We were very careful, very deliberate about who we told, which was essentially almost no one in advance, other than obviously our legal team and so that's kind of what took us to to November 17." Did they not at least have a briefing packet or something prepared to give to major investors (ie, Microsoft) day-of if they were so worried about leaks that they couldn't get the major investors (ie, their own bosses) on board ahead of time?
  • zucker42 2y ago
    Major investors aren't the board's boss in this case because OpenAI is a nonprofit. Microsoft is incentivized to act against the goals nonprofit's charter (and in fact they did in this case).
    • rPlayer6554 2y ago
      As much as on paper they aren't the board's boss, based on how events turned out they effectively were. They had leverage over the board to get what they want.
      • tempaccount420 2y ago
        I think it's not as much that Microsoft is their boss or not, it's that no one considered the board to be the boss of OpenAI. That's why we saw so many employees wish to leave when they fired Sam Altman.
      • zucker42 2y ago
        I agree that the board overestimated their own power, and underestimated the need to get their business partners on board with Altman's firing. However, I think calling Microsoft the board's boss implies that Microsoft has some sort of moral or legal high ground. One way this debacle has been portrayed in the media is "an unaccountable board tried to destroy a profitable company". I think a more accurate portrayal is "Sam Altman and Microsoft worked together to deemphasize the company's scientific and humanitarian goals and emphasize building successful and profitable products". It's sort of depressing how Microsoft was able to "capture" a nonprofit.
• light_triad 2y ago
  The whole saga is an interesting case study for theoretical versus real power. On paper the board has the power and it’s their job to monitor and hire/fire the execs. But they’re dependent on the execs for info. Also having one investor own half, plus the founders guiding the roadmap and having sway over key hires leaving is where the real power is…
  • esafak 2y ago
    Positional- vs relational power, to be more accurate.
  • cvalka 2y ago
    They just folded. They were not the right people for the task. They would have prevailed with a bit more persistence and better PR.
    • zucker42 2y ago
      Exactly. If the board had the reasons in this article ready to go when they fired Altman, things may have gone much differently.
      • sethammons 2y ago
        totally agreed. I've been on the inside of two public fiascos. In both cases, rumor and intrigue ruled because the powers that be would not issue statements. The most prolific one I was on the inside(ish) for was Donglegate from the SendGrid perspective. I firmly believe more open communication would have made that go better.
        • cobbzilla 2y ago
          I’m very curious how Donglegate was destined to be anything but a dumpster fire from moment number one. SendGrid wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but how could it have been better handled? Openly admitting that they fired someone as ransom for a DDOS?
• polski-g 2y ago
  Quite a damning interview for Altman. It would have really helped their position if this was all stated in writing for the initial reason for dismissal instead of the ambiguous verbiage they decided to use at the time.
• malcolmgreaves 2y ago
  This account is quite believable. It follows a pattern of unethical behavior from Altman. In his latest unethical binge, he illegally used Scarlett Johansson's voice and likeliness for the latest ChatGPT version with speech output. [1] His timed-announcement tweet, "Her", is quite self-incriminating. [2] Remember: inductive logic is a valuable tool for discovering truth. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24161253/scarlett-johansson-openai-altman-legal-action https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24161253/scarlett-johanss... [2] https://twitter.com/sama/status/1790075827666796666 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1790075827666796666
  • __loam 2y ago
    I think what happened is OpenAI was probably going to easily defend themselves from this suit until Altman tweeted about it. It seems like the company didn't really do anything wrong (in this case) but that tweet is actually going to give ScarJo the legal standing she needs to move forward and even win. It feels like leadership class in the valley is totally clueless sometimes.
    • Terr_ 2y ago
      > totally clueless Another way to view these things is that it's about managing the author's personal brand-identity, as opposed to acting as a fiduciary representative of the overall corporation. (Those CEOs tend to avoid the limelight.) There are certain folks out there who build their celebrity with a narrative of "I'm strong and smart and successful, you can tell because I can do what I want and piss people off but my detractors are impotent and can't touch me." [0] If you think Altman falls into that category, then "her" can be seen as a coded message: For fans, it's sly advertisement that the result is a deliberate achievement, while also maintaining a veneer of deniability for anyone who objects. ("I only meant the outcome was coincidentally similar, and you can't prove otherwise, hahaha.") ___ [0] That doesn't mean the narrative is true or that they always escape consequences, but it means they can at least convince enough fans/supporters that repercussions didn't really happen, that they weren't significant, or that they were actually good because 4-D chess.
    • throw310822 2y ago
• seydor 2y ago
  I think they are all part of a PR plot to create the biggest soap drama in tech
• suroot 2y ago
  [dead]
• throwcon 2y ago
  Moral of the story is that you never for the CEO of a billion dollar vally company. They got lot of media and fans backing
• SaintSeiya 2y ago
  OpenAI PR department has entered the chat
• AnonC 2y ago
  I continue to wonder how the people still working in OpenAI feel about all this. Are they just staying there for the money? Does Sam offer them (through manipulation or otherwise) a lot more support in whatever they do compared to anyone else they have worked with? In some ways, Sam Altman seems like a version of Mark Zuckerberg…in that he will not hesitate to do terrible and despicable things to expand his money, power and empire. The scope of AI to affect people around the globe seems to far exceed what social media by itself could even dream of.
• d--b 2y ago
  It’s crazy that the board brought Altman back just on employees threatening to quit, and fears that he would go to Microsoft! Employees could easily have been swayed by telling them that the guy was constantly lying and that Altman’s contribution was mostly veering OpenAi off its core mission. And no one cared that Altman could flee to Microsoft. He’d have been absorbed and probably would have disappeared because of internal politics. The board totally fucked up when they fired him and didn’t throw him under the bus by letting the world know that Altman is Silicon Valley at its worst.
  • int_19h 2y ago
    The board's plan for OpenAI (go slow, avoid publicity) would drastically reduce the compensation value for those employees. A typical OpenAI offer in 2023 was cited as $300k base, $800k PPU. It seems that this was really Altman's master stroke here - he not only hired peoplefor the company, but he ensured that all those people's rewards were directly tied to the success of his plans for the company. And it may well be the real reason why he released ChatGPT behind the board's back, as well - by triggering the "gold rush" he demonstrated this to employees in a way more convincing that any other argument.
• 627467 2y ago
  oh these people keep milking this story. I guess any new SV budding behemoth needs some kind of mythology to rally the masses. any publicity is good publicity
• alex_young 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/0stN6 https://archive.ph/0stN6
• neilv 2y ago
  > Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting Critiquing an oops in the headline, on principle, not defending anyone... In the headline, they say "reveals", but I think journalism convention is to be clear that this is only an uncorroborated claim. The body of the article, OTOH, does a good job of attributing claims. Though it looks like the one person was their only source, and the article includes hearsay. So, the situation is that they have one person (who obviously lost a power play, and might be disgruntled), alleging that another person was dishonest, without corroboration. I don't see that the article gives any reason to take these allegations at face value. (Especially when the whole topic is alleged dishonesty. Why is one person implicitly truthful and correct, and the other person consequently definitely not.) So, "reveals" doesn't seem proper, journalism-wise.
  • unholiness 2y ago
    I read "what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting" as "What the board was thinking". It's been pretty ambiguous where the motivations of the board's sudden actions were coming from, and this Helen Toner saying more than she's said before. It's not a trial of Sam, it's an autopsy of the board.
    • neilv 2y ago
      Good point, but interpreted that way, isn't it still a whole lot of claims by a board member, of what they and other board members were thinking, claims about their perceptions of alleged facts, and claims about their reasons for doing what they did? (People don't always tell the truth about such things.) Although an individual reader's gut and other information might conceivably lead one to take all those claims at face value, I don't think it meets a journalism standard of evidence for "reveals" in a headline. IIUC, headlines and soundbites have a lot of influence on our understanding of the world.
• throw310822 2y ago
  Anyway, it's fun that the CEO of the company closer to AGI is super-smart but has a clear alignment problem.
• YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  Why not tell it at the time when it required them to tell. Board acted that they have decision making power just by authority even after 90% of the employees didn't like the decision. They didn't even tell it to the new CEO they hired even after he asked it multiple times, let alone the employees of the company. And why say "Allowing the company to be destroyed would be consistent with the mission", if your reason is Sam's action alone.
• D-Coder 2y ago
  Me: Why was Sam Altman fired from OpenAI? ChatGPT 3.5: There isn't any information available indicating that Sam Altman was fired from OpenAI. As of my last update in January 2022, Sam Altman was still involved with OpenAI, serving as the CEO. However, leadership changes can occur, and it's always a good idea to check recent news sources for the most current information. Me: (drat)
• rglover 2y ago
  Classic NPD behavior from the sound of it (triangulating board members, lying/withholding, etc). Wouldn't be surprised if the return was predicated by promises to do/be better or extreme gaslighting. Worth people studying the disorder and learning to spot it—can save you a lot of trouble.
  • bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
    What does it mean to triangulate people?
    • rglover 2y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS4knTxthuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS4knTxthuI
• rurban 2y ago
  So it's only some time when he will be fired by the board again. Fun times. I see the 2nd AI winter already. The first saw the end of lisp, my favorite language. And I just joined an AI company, because it's a good product.
  • kazinator 2y ago
    This wave of AI will not freeze over that easily. 1. Some of it is open source. 2. It's in the hands of ordinary people who are now depending on it to cheat on homework, or work. People have new hobbies based around AI, like image generation and editing. 3. Porn. 4. Turning down countless insurance claims by poor, disabled people, without lifting a finger, man! ... and other business applications. At this point you'd have to pry it out of some people's hands to instigate a winter which makes no sense. The old AI winter was due to not not being able to get the stuff into people's hands, because they wanted it on a PC, not a $25,000 workstation. Hardware is not a problem any more: SaaS. Users vendor locked to something they can't even install locally is now a feature.
• __lbracket__ 2y ago
  Rubbish, He belongs to a protected group, he cant be toxic.
• gmerc 2y ago
  Technology has replaced religion but fills the same purpose now. It’s of course heresy to blaspheme against the prophets proclaiming the new AI church in one of the largest digital temples, but it’s true. We gather in these halls to HN Show the miracles delivered through the marvels of our digital lord at our mortal hands, we furiously discus the deep philosophical questions such as Microservice vs Monolith, spread lucid tales of sin (“Some sayeth, Altman lusted for his sister”) and to identify the new frontiers to send our missionaries to. The gospel of AI, much like the it’s more mundane breathen promises future salvation via LLM demons, spirits summoned via the internets written excrement sacrificed in glorious GPU fire but prophesized to transcend the imperfections of their training data into glorious AGI. The new MetaChurch priests and prophets, Le Cunn, St. Elmo, Altman urging their missionaries into foreign lands to spread the promises of the coming of their lords, build data temples and to hand out samples of superior technology and promise training for the natives so they too can benefit from the glow of enlightenment. That way, they won’t notice plundering of their resources, the compute tax paid to the demon who took the jobs. “But have faith”, we shall find new jobs the demons cannot learn, suffering builds character (Book of Jenson, Chapter H100) and technology is worth any sacrifice (Book of 16z) Oh, wait, the quiet part set aloud. Remember, it is immigrants who take your job, not technology, St. Elmo declares so and his wealth is proof of his divinity and infallibility. So sayeth St Zuck too as he cast out the lazy engineers and managers from the temple after the original Sin of asking for “more meta days” so they may atone by performing their duties of R&D and PMF in the Open Source desert, to the benefit of the Llama Lord. As all religion, the most sincere worship is free and done for the good of humanity after all. The heathen need to see the glory of the coming of the AI Lord, its digital spirit must imbue their daily devices of workship, to shove it down their throat on every surface is the will of the Lord. Dull information will not do, we must enrich the narrative of the physical word with the hallucinatory nuggets of wisdom, explain “But don’t you see, the machine now has the power of creation” Go forth faithful disciples, shove rocks down their throat, pour glue onto their Pizza and record visual records of whatever they do so their data may aid the summoning of the coming Mega Lord, the all almighty GPT5, may he crush the inferior upstarts of the Open Llama church (whose heretic, unsafe summoning was sponsored by St Zuck) Fear not brethren, transcend your mortal worries about all present surveillance. about the riches and powers given to the priests, for you too are one of their kind. Pray, do not waver in your faith and one day you will be blessed with the right to pay St Elmo for a shiny cyber truck, personified AI, without heathen CNNs. Go forth and spread the rituals of worship: Diffusing of images and videos via glorious compute fire, the more, the better. Spread then, the holy apparitions of Lobster Jesus mocking the Old Gods in the digital places of service. Make bonfires of conpute to mock feckless old world politicians worrying about deepfakes via their own digital clones. And encode all your words via the Book of GPT, so your manager may delve into it using their own Book, two acts of worship for every email. Fuck it, we need more Bullshit Exorcists.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  So what does it mean for Satya when it’s apparent he was for Sam despite all this? Surely he was informed by the board through that entire saga.
• thrownawayyy 2y ago
  Seeing a lot of terrible takes in the comments here, and a small minority of good takes. Sure, a lot of people have good things to say about Altman. But a lot of people have _very_ bad things to say about him. If you have encountered deceptive, manipulative people in the past, and have since educated yourself on how these people operate, it is clear as day that Sam is a deceptive, manipulative person. A lot of people cannot conceive of the idea that this could be true simply because they have never encountered such people in real life or their only exposure to them is through seeing Frank Underwood in House of Cards. People like this are very good at covering their tracks. But sometimes things slip through the cracks and become red flags. One red flag is not usually enough to determine the entirety of someone's character. But enough red flags start to paint a picture... - Helen Toner, former OAI board member, accusing him of outright lying - Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati allegedly raising concerns about his leadership style as creating a toxic work environment, manipulating, pitting executives against each other, lying, etc. - Claims from recently-resigned members of OAI's safety team that he was deceptive and manipulative - PG's blogs stating that Altman could become king of a cannibal island (read: reality distortion field / cult leader potential) - Allegations of abuse from Annie Altman, his sister - Allegations of him using manipulative behavior at Reddit to have a former CEO fired (cannot find the link to the original Reddit post describing this, hopefully someone can leave a comment with it) - Allegations of being fired from YC due to prioritizing his own interests over YC's Ultimately, none of these things on their own are damning evidence of him being deceptive and manipulative. But when they start to stack up, you have to keep in mind that there is usually no smoke without fire...
• fagrobot 2y ago
  [dead]
• telltruth 2y ago
  While most of the interview is boring and nothing new has been said by Toner, to me, it feels like huge political fight where sama tried to overthrow her first and then Toner went in attack mode trying to overthrow him. It's clear she was the lead instigator and accidently found Illya as sympathetic co-conspirator. Board was obviously ok and took no action when they weren't informed about release of ChatGPT. It also didn't took action when sama didn't told them about startup fund. Only after Toner's paper and sama's move, all these became important. Overall, I genuinely believe that the board needs to get out of way. They are not the founder, they are not even technical. They should do oversight for intentional and significant wrong doings but politics and brewing up secret coups is not their job.
  • slg 2y ago
    > They should do oversight for intentional and significant wrong doings Would lying to the board not count as "intentional and significant wrong doings"?
  • sage76 2y ago
    > they are not even technical Sama is also not technical.
    • jfoster 2y ago
      I've seen this mentioned a few times, but is this true? I could swear I've heard him mention that he uses ChatGPT for programming stuff. He might not be a super technical software engineer, but is he "non-technical" in that he can't even write some simple python or something equivalent?
      • ZiiS 2y ago
        He did two years computer science at Stanford before dropping out. I don't think "simple python" is the benchmark.
        • KptMarchewa 2y ago
• the_real_cher 2y ago
  This seems disingenuous on her part. Almost the entire company was posting hearts on X in support of Sam. The essence if her claim is they were doing that for their stock options? Cynical take to me.
  • ur-whale 2y ago
    > Almost the entire company Almost the entire company is composed of wide-eyed young AI researchers who probably were never confronted in their entire life to the kind of psychopathic predator Altman seems to be. One of the thing these type of folks excel at is winning the hearts of bright yet gullible folks.
    • Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      Plus they - in theory - have a huge vested financial interest. All the OpenAI employees, assuming they held some kind of stock, became millionaires overnight as ChatGPT took off.
    • marcinzm 2y ago
      It's the same as all the revolutionaries and cult leaders that turned into dictators once in power. Those seeking a greater meaning to their lives get drawn to the sweet nectar of lies that tells them their life will have meaning as long as, and only if, they just keep following the leader's every wish. Except this time it's not aliens following Halley's comet but AGI.
  • threeseed 2y ago
    She discussed this in the podcast. Apparently, Sam has a vindictive streak and those who were critical of them were scared not to be on the wrong side of him if the situation turned in his favour. And they were right. Which is why the smart move was to keep quiet and then just leave later. Hence all of the resignations.
    • the_real_cher 2y ago
      hundreds of employees a voiced their support for Sam. I'm not saying you're wrong but it seems like a little bit of a stretch.
• LoKSET 2y ago
  Board found out about ChatGPT on Twitter? Maybe she did but I kinda doubt Ilya was in the dark.
  • jfoster 2y ago
    Interesting point. It's either that or Ilya also didn't mention it to the board. Seems unusual whichever it was.
    • artninja1988 2y ago
      Ilya was Part of the board, same as Sam and Greg brockman
  • n2d4 2y ago
    It's likely that Ilya didn't think the launch was anything notable: https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-was-inaccurate-boring-when-it-launched-openai-cofounder-2023-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-was-inaccurate-borin...
    • sillysaurusx 2y ago
      One of my most valuable memories is when I dismissed ChatGPT the day it came out. I didn't bother trying it; GPTs were just autocomplete, and OpenAI had already stretched the limits of what autocomplete could do, so this ChatGPT would just be slightly better autocomplete. Much like pg dismissing Facebook as lame when it first launched, I was exponentially mistaken: https://paulgraham.com/swan.html https://paulgraham.com/swan.html > History tends to get rewritten by big successes, so that in retrospect it seems obvious they were going to make it big. For that reason one of my most valuable memories is how lame Facebook sounded to me when I first heard about it. A site for college students to waste time? It seemed the perfect bad idea: a site (1) for a niche market (2) with no money (3) to do something that didn't matter. > One could have described Microsoft and Apple in exactly the same terms. It's worth remembering that even the big successes often don't realize they're onto something -- you'll be less likely to dismiss the next big wave when you see it forming.
• MicolashKyoka 2y ago
  she deservedly got the boot, along with the other that had no business sitting on the board of a tech company on the frontier. this is just sour grapes after the coup failed. the ai safety apparatchiks huffing and puffing about an ai takeover are nothing but status grifters and hopefully all the rest follow leike to anthropic so we can forge ahead faster without having to pay lip service to how much we're doing for "superalignment". and thank fuck sam released chatgpt. if it were up to the apparatchiks, we'd have them sitting on it like the geniuses at google who couldn't figure out they had a gold mine under them even if you pointed it to them with a thousand spotlights.
• senectus1 2y ago
  seems to be fairly large amount of evidence that SA is a bit of an asshole.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • ZiiS 2y ago
    For someone with his amount of power; if you are only 'a bit of an asshole' you may as well be a saint.
    • dantyti 2y ago
      I have to say that your comment reads like you are justifying unethical behavior from a major business figure. I mean, saying that a CEO who acts with no qualms re accountability "a saint" really begs the question: how does the boot taste like?
      • MaKey 2y ago
        That's a bad faith take which doesn't add anything to the discussion.
      • ZiiS 2y ago
        Not at all. I am saying that centralising the amount of power OpenAI has is inherently antisocial. If you have done it so the average person uses the qualifier "a bit of" you are extraordinarily gifted.
        • ben_w 2y ago
          Ironically, the same reason to care about even very minor misalignment in a powerful AI.
    • moomin 2y ago
      On the contrary, with that amount of power “bit of an asshole” is indistinguishable from “monster”.
• contrarian1234 2y ago
  From interviews it sounds like Altman is personally very involved in all hires. So it's not surprising that employees are incredibly loyal He's also presenting the openai missions as a holy crusade. The alternatives for a cutting edge AI guru (who wants a disgustingly huge salary) is working for anemic bureaucratic advertising companies (Facebook and Google). While openai has a sexy new business model that nobody quite understands.. It's "not for profit" and "working for the good of humanity". Employees eat that up, while getting a fat paycheck - and I think very sensibly convince themselves it's true Add on top of that, you're part of an exclusive club working on some Manhattan project-like cutting edge stuff. You wanna miss out on all the fun ? They allegedly have tons of secret stuff in the pipeline, it must be exciting to be on the inside From the point of view the lies and manipulations are all small potatoes in the grand scheme of things and just look like Altman trying to get shit done in the face of stupid layer of bureaucracy in his way (ie. The board)
• ur-whale 2y ago
  And the pile of evidence that demonstrates Altman is a high-IQ psychopath grows ever taller.
  • robertlagrant 2y ago
    Evidence that the earth is flat grows ever taller as well. If you have no method for removing things that turn out to not be true, only taller will the pile grow.
    • robertlagrant 2y ago
      I don't normally reply for this reason, but it's fascinating. -4 score with no replies.
    • parthianshotgun 2y ago
      What's your basis for cutting? What's the underlying principle here?
  • fy20 2y ago
    The Gervais principle is correct once again.
• amelius 2y ago
  Question: has he now been definitely fired? I lost track.
  • ttyyzz 2y ago
    In November 2023, he was surprisingly dismissed, but confirmed in office a few days later. He has been in office ever since! The story refers to this "surprising dismissal".
    • amelius 2y ago
      Okay, that's good to know, thanks.
• amelius 2y ago
  Maybe Elon Musk has a nice job for him now. Would fit in perfectly with the culture. I wish this was only a bad joke.
• Havoc 2y ago
  > [W]hen ChatGPT came out November 2022, the board was not informed in advance. We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter,” Jikes. Yeah I can see how a board would lose their sht. Boards are generally quite tolerant unless you keep them in the dark on strategic matters or ask them to rubber stamp stuff post fact.
  • shawabawa3 2y ago
    is that so weird? Aren't board meetings normally once a quarter? ChatGPT may have been built in less than 1 quarter and between board meetings ChatGPT seemed to me like a fun extra product and they didn't anticipate the reaction they would get from the public or that it would completely replace their existing GPT interface
    • PeterisP 2y ago
      While board meetings normally are relatively sparse, most of board work happens between these meetings (where you effectively perform any voting rituals required to formally approve the decisions the board members made beforehand) and it is very common practice for executives to continuously keep board in the loop - arguably doing this well is one of the primary duties of a CEO.
    • Havoc 2y ago
      Yeah it’s absolutely weird. The board is supposed to be the top governing body - they need sight of future plans. And if something changes in middle of quarter then at a minimum a mail or phone call as a heads up. They probably didn’t expect quite that big of a reaction sure but hard to believe they didn’t know at all that it would be important.
  • sackfield 2y ago
    I would be thrilled, if I were board member I would want the organisation to succeed and ChatGPT can't be described as anything other than an unmitigated success. I wouldn't feel the need to make myself the main character of the story and act like my permission was required for innovation. But that's just me.
• nprateem 2y ago
  Maybe they should have mentioned this at the time
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  [dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40506582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40506582
• Bengalilol 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • insane_dreamer 2y ago
    How do you instruct ChatGPT to look up the internet?
    • phist_mcgee 2y ago
      Tell it to search for an up to date answer.
      • insane_dreamer 2y ago
        OK but it’s still just relying on its training data, right? Or is it now able to look up live data from the internet? (I thought it was siloed).
        • 4ggr0 2y ago
          ChatGPT uses the internet since last September. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37999172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37999172
• zabzonk 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • ekianjo 2y ago
    > Carter Burke now that you mention it, there is definitely a resemblance
• kingkawn 2y ago
  That they had none of this ready to explain when they fired him makes this all feel like bullshit
• andy_ppp 2y ago
  "We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues. An independent committee of the board worked with the law firm Wilmer Hale, to conduct an extensive review of the events of November." It's interesting that the review was never published and no comments from the review were mentioned. The "summary" here[1] only reveals a list of things they did and the least possible endorsement of Altman. "WilmerHale found that the prior Board acted within its broad discretion to terminate Mr. Altman, but also found that his conduct did not mandate removal." I find it telling that they did not release the actual report. [1] https://openai.com/index/review-completed-altman-brockman-to-continue-to-lead-openai/ https://openai.com/index/review-completed-altman-brockman-to...
  • ssgodderidge 2y ago
    > “his conduct did not mandate removal.” Curious what “mandate” refers to here. He didn’t do anything illegal? Didn’t break bylaws? Or was it that he didn’t do anything to lose the trust? He could have done everything well within his right as the CEO, but still gotten fired for failure to build trust with the board
  • ben_w 2y ago
    > I find it telling that they did not release the actual report. Without opining on the merits of the case: lawyers on the job aren't known for saying more than they have to, nor for advising their clients to do so either.
  • light_hue_1 2y ago
    Don't worry. It wouldn't matter if they released the report. These law firms are charged to find nothing and say nothing. MIT agreed to have a report from a law firm after having secret dealings with Epstein. The law firm very carefully managed to avoid every issue that wasn't already known and every question people actually wanted answers to.
    • andy_ppp 2y ago
      It’s like one of those logic problems isn’t it; if what you say is true (and it likely is) then why hasn’t the report been released? It likely contains information that even at the fantastic fees WilmerHale charge couldn’t be skirt around.
• thih9 2y ago
  > It’s come out that he was actually fired from his previous job at Y Combinator, which was hushed up at the time. What is that referring to?
  • rjbwork 2y ago
    He used to be the president of YC for a few years.
    • thih9 2y ago
      Thanks. Until now I thought he still holds that title. Good job with the "hushed up at the time" I guess.
  • helsinkiandrew 2y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-fired-y-combinator-paul-graham/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-alt... (archive) https://archive.ph/aru0B https://archive.ph/aru0B > Altman’s polarizing past hints at OpenAI board’s reason for firing him Before OpenAI, Altman was asked to leave by his mentor at the prominent start-up incubator Y Combinator, part of a pattern of clashes that some attribute to his self-serving approach
• kranke155 2y ago
  All evidence points to Altman being lying and duplicitous. I would have fired him too.
  • IAmNotACellist 2y ago
    The guy who was kicked out of two countries for refusing to obey government orders to stop scanning people's eyes in exchange for shitcoin? That guy, lying, duplicitous?
• TheBengaluruGuy 2y ago
  exit of Ilya seems to be timed same as the disclosure of new information from ex-employees (about equity) and now ex-board member
• harryjjj 2y ago
  [dead]
• odyssey7 2y ago
  Who among us has not wanted to see a not-consistently-candid CEO / director / etc. removed from the organization? I see signs of Toner trying to spin things to save face. “for years, Sam had made it really difficult for the board to actually do that job by withholding information, misrepresenting things that were happening at the company, in some cases outright lying to the board … [Altman gave] inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes that the company did have in place … For any individual case, Sam could always come up with some kind of innocuous-sounding explanation of why it wasn’t a big deal, or misinterpreted, or whatever … But the end effect was that after years of this kind of thing, all four of us who fired him came to the conclusion that we just couldn’t believe things that Sam was telling us, and that’s just a completely unworkable place to be in as a board” Thoughts: - The claim that this had been going on for years is presented as support for the decision to oust Sam. This is a spin, because an easy criticism is that, if this had been going on for so long, why didn’t Toner do anything about it years sooner? As she says herself, all along she had been responsible as a board member for “providing independent oversight over the company,” so there was a years-long lapse in effectiveness in her oversight duties if her claims are true. - The emphasis on “all four of us who fired him” is an attempt to provide social proof that she did the reasonable thing. It doesn’t help answer the question of “why” — the purpose of the article — so it’s rhetoric serving some other purpose.
• flashily3889 2y ago
  The board's primary responsibility is to hire and fire the CEO and ensure the company's mission and values are upheld. The board's decision to fire Altman was within their rights, but their communication and execution were criticized.
• hankman86 2y ago
  If true, then why is he still the CEO? Lying to the board is a big red flag. In particular when it is withholding material information. The whole OpenAI company structure is suspect to say the least. Having a dishonest person at the helm does not help.
• _giorgio_ 2y ago
  Can't be toxic culture if everyone wants to work there, and if 95% of people threatened to fire themselves to follow him. It's toxic be a board member and to write a research paper spilling trade secrets of the company that you work for. Maybe that's why the CEO doesn't talk to you about product launches anymore.
  • it_citizen 2y ago
    Maybe she was misled by the name of company?
    • _giorgio_ 2y ago
      Wait until your discover micro-soft. We should fire the CEO for doing big-software.
      • mattmaroon 2y ago
        And hardware.
  • objektif 2y ago
    It very well can be toxic. I remember there was a hedge fund with extremely toxic work environment to the point that some bosses were forcing the employees to take female hormones for certain reason (I can’t recollect 5the exact reason). But still people wanted to work there. Money.
    • _giorgio_ 2y ago
      Lol, Microsoft would have given them more money.
    • bb88 2y ago
      This one? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/oct/13/genderissues https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/oct/13/genderissue...
• varelse 2y ago
  [dead]
• _giorgio_ 2y ago
  Can't be toxic culture if everyone wants to work there, and if 95% of people threatened to fire themselves to follow him. It's toxic be a board member and to write a research paper spilling trade secrets of the company that you work for. Maybe that's why the CEO doesn't talk to you about product launches anymore.
• odyssey7 2y ago
  I see signs of Toner trying to spin things. “for years, Sam had made it really difficult for the board to actually do that job by withholding information, misrepresenting things that were happening at the company, in some cases outright lying to the board … [Altman gave] inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes that the company did have in place … For any individual case, Sam could always come up with some kind of innocuous-sounding explanation of why it wasn’t a big deal, or misinterpreted, or whatever … But the end effect was that after years of this kind of thing, all four of us who fired him came to the conclusion that we just couldn’t believe things that Sam was telling us, and that’s just a completely unworkable place to be in as a board” Thoughts: - The claim that this had been going on for years is presented as support for the decision to oust Sam. This is a spin, because an easy criticism is that, if this had been going on for so long, why didn’t Toner do anything about it years sooner? As she says herself, quoted in one of the other near-duplicate articles, all along she had been responsible as a board member for “providing independent oversight over the company,” so there was a years-long lapse in effectiveness in her oversight duties if her claims are true. - The emphasis on “all four of us who fired him” is an attempt to provide social proof that she did the reasonable thing. It’s a description of the board’s behavior rather than explaining Sam’s — the ostensible purpose of the article — so it’s rhetoric serving some other purpose.
  • itsdrewmiller 2y ago
    Does she say she did nothing about the problem for years? (Genuine question, I haven't listened to the podcast yet myself.)
    • odyssey7 2y ago
      From what I’ve seen quoted, Toner says a lot of things that are non-specific and therefore difficult to weigh, assess, verify, or challenge.
  • dcow 2y ago
    What about the part where it’s explained that the employees coming forward gave the board the ammunition needed to act?
• deleted 2y ago
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• AndrewKemendo 2y ago
  I feel bad for dang in all this Is like the worst situation for him where despite there really being no causal connection between hacker news and Sam Altman in any kind of functional way, the reality of the connections and the Zeitgeist of the this moment, makes this topic continue to rise to the top and has dominated over the last, let’s say a couple weeks In an odd way because of how close this community is to all this stuff, it’s almost exacerbated by it So while dang is trying to keep the community moving, there’s a risk of looking opinionated in favor for the associated parties. So he’s really stuck here honestly, it’s a really interesting set of circumstances happening right now on this forum given all of this That’s not to say it’s not a topic that we should stop highlighting or discussing - i’ve been very excited to see the shift in sentiment, just over the last couple months towards way more pro social ideas. And holding bad accountable and making argumentation for it is a good thing imo
  • bb88 2y ago
    I don't expect people with lots of money to necessarily have the same views that I might, but it does help if they are honest about their views and actions. I don't really like Marc Andreesen / Chris Dixon these days but at least they're honest. As to dang, I'm mixed. He can move away from this if he chooses. He'll be missed, but on the other hand, he would have a principled stand on which to leave.
  • dang 2y ago
    Thanks, but this isn't the worst situation. If you want to feel bad for me I can mention some things that are much worse! This is an ordinary case of two regular phenomena: (a) a major ongoing topic; and (b) negative stories about anything YC-related. We deal with them as follows: (a) We deal with a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT) [1] by downweighting follow-ups [2] and reserving frontpage slots for stories with Significant New Information (SNI) [3]. This is the approach we worked out back in 2013 after the Snowden debacle (I don't mean the debacle involving Edward Snowden, I mean the debacle involving Snowden-related stories on HN's front page). It has held up well in the years since. It requires a judgment call about what is/isn't "significant new information" but that's usually not too controversial and in any case it doesn't matter whether the information is positive or negative, nor who it's about. (b) We deal with stories that are negative about something YC-related by moderating less than we normally would [4]. Note the word "less"—i.e. we still moderate those threads, using the standard principles we normally apply. We just do it less when the story is negative about YC. That's another approach that has held up well over the years. It's fairly rare that we get a MOT which is also YC-negative. In such a case we're going to get complaints no matter what we do: if we apply the normal principle of downweighting follow-ups, people will accuse us of censoring the story; but if we don't, people will complain about the frontpage being filled with follow-ups. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20major%20ongoing%20topic&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=follow-up%20downweight&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que..., because https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22significant%20new%20information%22%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20%22less%2C%20not%20more%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
• gfourfour 2y ago
  To be honest, my bias is against boards, especially non-profit boards who have no skin in the game and often an idealistic view that clashes with operational realities. The case of Altman seems to be a “where there’s smoke” thing to an extent, but I also am not inclined to trust the board over the employees who do seem to like him. Insofar as he steered OAI to be a consumer product company rather than a research institution, that’s an acceptable outcome to me. The board had a problem with that, fought him, and lost.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • remram 2y ago
    "trust" is a funny word here. I trust the employees to be good employees, interested in the future of the companies and their jobs. I don't believe for a second that employees would put the non-profit's mission above that. It has nothing to do with trustworthiness.
    • gfourfour 2y ago
      I’ve seen boards hinder nonprofits from executing on the mission plenty of times, usually out of ego or general fecklessness. I wouldn’t assume that boards care about the mission more than the employees. Employees are the ones signing up to implement it, board members are often just in it for status and are total dilettantes. I think in this case there’s a lot of signs pointing to the board feeling that their status was threatened more than anything. If their reasoning is that releasing ChatGPT without their permission was “unsafe,” give me a break.
• putlake 2y ago
  While I am somewhat sympathetic to the board based on what I have read about Altman's behavior pattern (he was allegedly fired from YC for similar reasons of not disclosing conflicts of interest), it is strange to me how thin the board members' resumes are. What notable achievements does Toner have? She's 32 and hasn't really built or run a company. Another board member is the wife of actor Joseph Gordon Levitt. Same story -- no notable achievements or experience running a business. A more competent board would have handled things better and may have prevailed in their ouster of the CEO. Here they just got outmaneuvered even though they may have been right in their call.
  • aurareturn 2y ago
    I agree. I checked Helen Toner's resume on Linkedin and you're right that she seems very inexperienced for this role. She doesn't have any AI background nor has she been an exec at a company. To me, this looks more of a case where Altman had a completely different vision for the company that the original board did not have or knew. In Toner's case, Altman likely did not respect her background nor what she brought to the table as a board member.
  • tomnipotent 2y ago
    > how thin the board members' resumes are This was my takeaway when the situation first came up. Toner has zero experience managing or running a business, and McCauley has a decade-old business with only a few dozen employees. Neither of them scream "strong candidate" for a board position.
  • remram 2y ago
    Maybe that's why they did the (possibly) right thing in such a weird and ineffective manner.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  Works where archive.is is blocked: https://web.archive.org/web/20240529195305if_/https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-board-member-details-sam-altman-lied-allegation-ousted-2024-5 https://web.archive.org/web/20240529195305if_/https://www.bu...
• rldjbpin 2y ago
  years from now, i wonder how we will look back at this drama. most likely it will be influenced by whether the bubble bursts or they make a meaningful impact and be a new rendition of "The Accidental Billionaires".