> can anyone explain to me what the actual value of San Altman is
Weird as it may seem: that's not all that important. What is important is that the rest of the world sees OpenAI as a mature and stable organization and that image has now been seriously damaged. Even if they wanted to fire Sam there must have been a dozen ways in which that could have been done more effectively and without this much damage to the OpenAI brand. It's almost comical, they were on track to outrun Google and Facebook combined and now they're on track to be an also-ran. You can expect a large number of resignations because no matter what you think of Sam Altman you want to work for a company that is mature and stable, not one where execs are replaced on a moments notice on a clear and sunny day without a direct and clear cause.
> they were on track to outrun Google and Facebook combined
But what if they don’t want that. Those are rapacious and malevolent organizations.
Regardless, even if that is the goal what’s the evidence Altman is the right guy for that? It’s not like he’s done that before. The relationship between his stature and his track record is the part that’s confusing me.
They are. But who is 'they'? The board? The shareholders of the for-profit? The rest of the people working there?
And if the board wanted the company to be a pure research organization they should have acted much, much earlier, and the company probably should not have hired Sam Altman in the first place but someone like Geoffrey Hinton or another respected name from academia, provided they would be available in the first place.
Agreed, but then they did it in the worst possible way. You don't create a crisis around your brand like this on purpose. Much better to get everybody to play along and make it look as if Sam really wanted to spend more time with his family. Short of a cold body in his freezer this was done carelessly. But let's wait and see how it all develops because it is more than just a little strange to see it play out like this without a good enough reason for the haste, if it turns out there wasn't I expect the board to be axed.
It could be as simple as using the bylaws as the chair of the board to point out a violation of the bylaws. It all depends, but at the end of the day board members that try to cling to their seats usually fail to do so. Ultimately their position could be challenged in court but most board members of non-profits are not that anxious to see their reputation destroyed that they'll let that be the deciding factor.
Either way, normally you'd have a pre-written resignation letter drafted where the only thing missing is their signature, and you'd confront them in a meeting: resign voluntarily or we'll put your continued presence up for a vote at the next board meeting. Of course the board could try to eternally vote itself back in but that usually doesn't work because a board has to be able to serve in its oversight role and one part of that is that the board has to have broad support, both legally and from within the organization. For instance: the board might no longer be able to find a CEO that is acceptable to the rest of the C-level. That would be a major problem.
Corporate governance is hard, non-profits have a bunch more twists but in the end nobody's position is carved in stone. Note that even non-profits have bylaws and these usually detail clearly how board members are to be proposed and what the procedure is to get them to become established as well as how they can be removed. If it can be proven that a board member has acted against the interests of the legal entity they represent then they usually can be removed even easier because that's a clear conflict with the statues of the non-profit, then there are potential conflicts of interest (for instance sitting on the board of another entity that has goals that are not compatible with those of the non-profit).
Nobody, including a board of directors is inviolable, it all depends on who the stakeholders of the non-profit are, the board is in principle independent but ultimately the judiciary still has more power than they do.
Depending on the bylaws it could be stakeholder: donors, beneficiaries or the employees of the non-profit in some organized form. All of these could petition the court if they feel that the non-profit wasn't governed properly. Note that it isn't known if the board acted unanimously (likely it it didn't) and what the grounds were. That will make a big difference to any outcome.
Non profits that lose their donors (especially if the money was pledged but not yet committed) usually don't live long so the board has some incentive to play ball.
> unless there’s a really genuinely large scale staff revolt
That's already underway, see other news about resignations at OpenAI, also donors have a very strong play to make.
Donors could simply withhold the next tranche, but possibly they can funnel enough money upwards from the for-profit to compensate for that.
Even so I would expect the other shareholders in the for-profit to be furious, especially those that liked Altman. So they're going to have to do some explaining because right now this does not deserve the beauty prize, to put it mildly.
Can you quantify and specify the brand damage? I only see some possible damage to current and possible future employee morale (in that some of them are quitting and others may be less inclined to take a job there). Do you see this as seriously affecting relationships with companies such as Microsoft? With end-users?
Depending on how the bylaws are put together: the donors, the beneficiaries, the employees of the non-profit and any other stakeholders. Any of those acting alone or in concert could petition a court if the board doesn't voluntarily resign. And if the board split on this issue is a close one then that might happen easier.
I find the idea that some random court filing would succeed in recalling the board of the most high profile technology company in the world, based on “we felt that they were brusque and unprofessional”, to be very unlikely. I mean, MAYBE if some of them started going to prison, but otherwise… this seems like the realm of politics more than court proceedings. But maybe I’m missing some precedents?
How does 'we backtracked and re-instated him because we made an oopsie' sound compared to a 'random court filing'?
And yes, there are plenty of precedents of board members being recalled, most of them aren't stupid enough to fight it, especially not non-profit board members, who are supposed to do this all for glory and sunshine. Typically they are presented with a pre-written one pager with date and place already filled in and all they do is sign it or they'll find their position to be up for a vote. And of course, the ranks could close around this decision but that might make some extremely powerful enemies. Think 'Microsoft', Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Reid Hoffman, YC, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Infosys.
The combined onslaught of that would annihilate the board. So unless they made very sure they had plenty of backing on this decision they set themselves up for a very difficult situation.
I don’t get why people aren’t seeing this. OpenAI said they’d achieve AGI by December. It’s mid November. When they claim to have achieved AGI, Microsoft’s deal with them ends immediately. Sam Altman is a practical man who thinks a lot about server costs, and Ilya is a terrified man who thinks a lot about potential catastrophe. Sam recently bragged about “pushing back the veil of ignorance”, and Ilya is working full-time on alignment techniques.
Why the dominant narrative isn’t “they’re probably disagreeing over the AGI status of a GPT5 ensemble because it affects their relationship w/ Microsoft” I have NO idea, and I’m trying to keep my head down and not let it all drive me crazy with anxiety…
Much love to the fellow hackers out there. If I’m anywhere close to right-ish, then I’m looking forward to exploring the post-SV/VC world with you.
I'd love to know how necessary the donations to the non-profit still are now that the commercial venture has picked up. But MSFT might want to re-think their OpenAI integration efforts at this point.
Weird as it may seem: that's not all that important. What is important is that the rest of the world sees OpenAI as a mature and stable organization and that image has now been seriously damaged. Even if they wanted to fire Sam there must have been a dozen ways in which that could have been done more effectively and without this much damage to the OpenAI brand. It's almost comical, they were on track to outrun Google and Facebook combined and now they're on track to be an also-ran. You can expect a large number of resignations because no matter what you think of Sam Altman you want to work for a company that is mature and stable, not one where execs are replaced on a moments notice on a clear and sunny day without a direct and clear cause.