Without knowing the real reasons behind it, it's very difficult to hold an opinion on the board's decisions
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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I don’t mind so much what they did with firing him, but how they did it, and everything since. It just seems extremely unprofessional and disorganized.
This is what I expect from the anarchist hacker spaces I used to hang out in in Oakland, not from a multibillion dollar company.
Right? I know Sam Altman sucks but I don't know if he was fired for more profit or less, or what exactly is going on. I'm not sure how to react to these articles besides surprise and bemusement.
besides surprise and bemusement
idk this seems like a pretty good reaction to me
Why does he suck? I know nothing about him.
Crypto bro, wants to scan everybody's eyes with AI, has this weird startup that puts eye scanners in orbs and places them around the world where people are curious and stare into them having their eyes scanned.
He's just a weird dude in general.
Just because I were curious enough to check this out, from Wikipedia:
Worldcoin aims to provide a reliable way to authenticate humans online, to counter bots and fake virtual identities facilitated by artificial intelligence. Using a distribution mechanism for its cryptocurrency similar to UBI, Worldcoin attempts to incentivize users to join its network by getting their iris scanned using Worldcoin's orb-shaped iris scanner.
Does it also mention that he basically deployed it exclusively in the third world, in places that the regulations were/are lax?
I think you got it backwards. The scanning was available everywhere, including the US... where the lack of privacy regulations allowed him to siphon biometric data without giving any crypto in exchange.
He isn't a "crypto bro", he's a guy who hyped the danger of AI in order to get as much biometric data as possible, everywhere.
Also other personal things about him in general
Rumor is since the board aren't investors, they're not looking for money from the venture.
Worse, some of them are Ethical Altruists, just like Sam Bankman Fried of FTX
I don't really fully understand it either but Altman has been a questionable character for a long time.
I remember when he took over ycombinator, Paul Graham boasted "if Altman got dropped onto an island full of cannibals, within three months he'd be king of the cannibals." PG thought this was terrific but I thought "why the hell would you leave someone like that in charge of your VC fund?" Altman had gotten the spot running the firm after failing out of his startup. He failed out of ycombinator and then managed to do that thing where he inexplicably failed at bigger and bigger things raising more money somehow every time.
It sounds like that's what he's doing now quite honestly. Rumor is he's been beating around the middle east raising billions for a new AI chip startup. Honestly while Elon has normalized CEOs wandering off and doing other things, the fact is that for any normal employee that alone would be grounds for dismissal, especially if he was being evasive with the board about his plans.
I'm not gonna say I know much about his history, but I am surprised so many people are jumping to take his side in this debacle. I would've thought in this day and age that people would be a bit more sceptical of CEOs.
I am with you. I’m still apprehensive about a lot of the how OpenAI handles data, but this is the first move in a while that has made me consider their product; to take this kind of risk means someone in charge actually believes in the thing beyond just being a golden goose.
Musk still has legions of fan boys; I'm not terribly surprised the eternally optimistic futurism fan boys have found another company-face to worship
This is embarrassing for them. I can understand ousting a CEO, but the board needs to go into that and leave it with confidence. If I were an investor I'd be very nervous about the state of the company, this shows they are very unsure about the future of the company. I'd say no one is at the wheel right now
First of all, fuck profit and investors. If you want to do good, you have to disregard them.
Second, I'm pretty sure bringing him back was a push by Google, not the board exactly.
This gives me a lot more faith the company will stick to it's guns and not turn into short-term profit seekers only. However, I don't know if the new CEO is a good choice. They should have taken someone from a non-profit or something.
Rather push by Microsoft instead of Google?
Oh, yeah. It might be MS. Whichever one it is...
I mean I agree but shouldn't they have stayed a nonprofit then?
They still are. The nonprofit board that fired sam altman owns both the profit seeking venture and the entity responsible for controlling the profit venture. I haven’t dug deep enough to be sure who if anyone can oust the board
Almost like it is not a for-profit company, and the investors interests are not a priority...
But why would they do such a thing? /s
This reads like a train wreck start to finish.
The outpouring of unprompted employee support speaks more to me than anything else and puts me firmly in Altman's camp. I can only think of a few bosses I've had in my life who would that reaction from their teams under these circumstances.
The reason the board have given is - if true - a very reasonable reason to fire a CEO. The job of the board is to oversee, scrutinise and challenge the management, and if the management were lying to or withholding information from the board then that's an obvious reason for the management to go.
American corporate governance standards are really hit-and-miss, and in a lot of these tech firms you often end up with situations of CEOs doubling up as chairs of their boards - e.g. Musk, Zuckerberg , Bezos -something that structurally neuters the ability of the board to do its basic job of challenging the CEO! So when I see an American board standing up to a CEO that's trying to evade scrutiny, I feel that's something that should be applauded.
This board is now learning why normal boards typically acquiesce aggressively to the CEO, or at least the investors. Clearly they didn't realize the amount of political capital Altman had and while they were well within their rights according to the rules and the charter of the company to do what they did, they're now bearing the full brunt of the backlash from the entire Silicon Valley investment community. You can tell from his twitter feed that Ilya is now running on pure emotion. I'm sure he's been given the "you'll never work in this town again" speech.
Sure.. but they didn't just fire the CEO. They also fired a third of the board members including the chair of the board. And they did it with zero notice, zero discussion, just "You're out. k-cya-bai".
And then they fired their interim CEO a day later.
Yes, they have the right to do all of that... but they need a bloody good reason. In this case the reason was so insignificant they seriously considered changing their mind and reinstating everyone. WTF.
I've got a solution. Why don't the employees control the company? Fuck this nonsense of the employees liking the old CEO or whatever. How about we make them democracies. What a concept!
I believe one of the worst possible timelines for the average human is one where for-profit capitalist entities control access to AGI and horde all the benefits accrued from it. OpenAI was founded specifically to avoid this - with a complicated governance structure designed to ensure true AGI would end up owned by humanity with the benefits shared by all.
The OpenAI board and top researchers made a desperate bid to prioritize safety over profits, and even with that elaborate governance structure behind them capitalism still seems to have found a way to fuck us.
Today we saw Satya Nadella and Sam Altman steer humanity further from a possible utopia and closer to.... Cyberpunk 2077.
Good luck everyone!
Good luck everyone!
More like, "It's been an honor serving with you!"
Lol it probably went something like, " sam sorry we fired you, please come back"
"Ok sure, 30% share in OAI, or fuck off"
"We can't do that!"
"Ok then fuck off"
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Shear will take over as interim OpenAI CEO from Mira Murati, who was publicly aligned with Altman.
The hiring of Shear appears to close the door on Altman’s exit after he was fired Friday when the board said he had not been “consistently candid in his communications.” As we reported Saturday, the board quickly began discussing the CEO’s return under pressure from investors and the threat of a mass employee walkout.
On Saturday night, sources told The Verge the remaining board members had missed a 5PM PT deadline to resign and reinstate Altman and fellow co-founder Greg Brockman or face a slew of staff resignations.
After the deadline passed, droves of OpenAI employees started posting their support for Altman on social media.
OpenAI’s profile has skyrocketed since the launch of ChatGPT, which quickly became one of the fastest-growing services ever and kicked off a tech gold rush over generative AI.
Earlier this month, Altman reported that the service has over 100 million weekly users.
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