Oh, then my apologies, it's unclear to me what you're arguing; That the disaster they find themselves in wasn't foreseeable?
That would imply they couldn’t have considered that Altman was beloved by vital and devoted employees? That big investors would be livid and take action? That the world would be shocked by a successful CEO being unceremoniously sacked during unprecedented success, with (unsubstantiated) allegations of wrongdoing, and leap on the story. Generally those are the kinds of things that would have come up on a "Fire Sam Pro and Cons" list. Or any kind "what's the best way to get what we want and avoid disaster" planning session. They made the way it was done the story, and if they had a good reason, it's been obscured and undermined by attempting to reinstate him.
You do not fire a CEO because you hold some personal grudges towards them. You fire them because they do something wrong. And I do not see any evidence or indication of smearing Altman, unless they lie about (ie I do not see any indication of them lying about it).
Thank you - this is one of the few reasonable takes I've seen on this whole mess. There is literally nothing Altman could have done that would justify the board having handled the situation in this way, and it makes them look grossly incompetent. Even if Altman had been engaged in some kind of criminal act, this is not the way in which you proceed. And regardless of whatever corporate structures you have in place, it is the height of naivete to think you can ignore the concerns of people who have written you a $10B check.
I do think this is a shame, because the structure had the potential to allow altruistic people to maintain some kind of governor on the commercial growth engine, but now that will be gone.
Think you're still missing what I'm saying. Yes, I understand people will speculate. I'm doing it myself here in this very thread.
The problem is people are beginning to speculate reasons for Altman's firing that have no bearing or connection to what the board members in question have actually said about why they fired him. And they don't appear to be even attempting to reconcile their ideas with that reality.
There's a difference between trying to come up with theories that fit with the available facts and everything we already know, and ignoring all that to essentially write fanfiction that cast the board in a far better light than the available information suggests.
I'm sure their are ways that we aren't privy to knowing just like we don't know why Altman was fired. Why was Sam Altman being dishonest and what was he dishonest about?
This reasoning is the only one that makes sense. Where action taken by the board aligns with logic and any private action done by Sam Altman that could have offended the board.
The story of the board being incompetent to the point of mental retardation and firing such a key person is just the most convenient, attractive and least probable narrative. It's rare for an intelligent person to do something stupid, even rarer an entire board of intelligent people to do something stupid in unison.
But it's so easy to fall for that trope narrative.
It's possible that the failure occurred at some point in the past. If the board truly believes keeping Altman is inherently incompatible with achieving their charter, they have to let him go. The fallout from that potentially kills the company, but a small chance of achieving the charter is better than no chance.
If that's the case, then the failing would be in letting it get to this point in the first place.
The value was based on e direction Altman was taking the company (and with him being in control). It's silly to think just replacing the CEO would somehow keep the valuation
That is very confusing to be sure but the explanations I’ve heard to this point that people are speculating on make absolutely zero sense. The board would fire him to protect a board member’s competing product? Why? Multiple people given the same project? What?
I’m not going to speculate why they would withhold any commentary this long because I have no idea but nothing about this adds up and calls for an alternate explanation. Remember that a lot of people have wagered their own reputations on Altman and so have a great interest in him coming out on top.
Well that story is just sad, because it means the principle/research-oriented company structure they set up utterly failed in the face of profit motives. Clearly Altman was not dissuaded from doing things the power structure didn't want him to do.
So, none of this sounds like it could be the real reason Altman was fired. This leaves people saying it was a "coup", which still doesn't really answer the question. Why did Altman get fired, really?
Obviously, it's for a reason they can't say. Which means, there is something bad going on at the company, like perhaps they are short of cash or something, that was dire enough to convince them to fire the CEO, but which they cannot talk about.
Imagine if the board of a bank fired their CEO because he had allowed the capital to get way too low. They wouldn't be able to say that was why he was fired, because it would wreck any chance of recovery. But, they have to say something.
So, Altman didn't tell the board...something, that they cannot tell us, either. Draw your own conclusions.
I think most of these employees wanted the fat $$$ that would happen by keeping Sam Altman on board since Sam Altman is an excellent deal maker and visionary in a commercial sense. I have no doubt that if AGI happened, we wouldn't be able to assure the safety of anyone since humans are so easily led by short term greed.
By not getting abruptly fired in the first place. He ultimately survived with the backing of the investors, but he didn't come out of this looking amazing. He clearly had issues with a number of the board members and appears to have been caught totally off guard by the firing, which isn't a great look.
I think the old board came out of this looking even worse, but that doesn't mean Altman ended up better off than if he had managed things better from the start.
It doesn't matter what the reason was. The rumor could have been that he was "fired" for no fault of his own; it would still be false. When you are asked to stay on and concentrate full time on being the CEO of YC, you are not being fired as the CEO of YC.
The thing here is, a lot of people have (for reasons I cannot really fathom) invested some of their identities in the idea that they have worked out the bones of the whole Sam Altman story, and the First Commandment of Message Boards is "I'm not wrong".
I guess I should rephrase that as if they did it because they perceived that Altman was maneuvering to be untouchable within the company and moving against the interests of the nonprofit, they did the right thing. Just, again, way too late because it seems he was already untouchable.
This is my take, Altman was fired because there was no other choice. OpenAIs charter is fundamentally incompatible with the hypercapitalist model and its believers. I'm sure the board tried to dissuade Sam from going certain path, but being an SV capitalist, there was no way to dissuade him. Given his own level of power and what I think was a superior hand, he ignored the board. At the point, the board really only had one move left, which was to fire him. I don't think it was the wrong move for the board, but they way it was done it really the big issue here.
It is likely that wherever Altman goes next, @gdb would follow, and _he_ is deeply loved by many at OAI (but so is Altman).
CEOs should be judged by their vision for the company, their ability to execute on that vision, bringing in funding, and building the best executive team for that job. That is what Altman brings to the table.
You make it seem that wanting to make money is a zero-sum game, which is a narrow view to take - you can be heavily emotionally and intellectually invested in what you do for a living and wanting to be financially independent at the same time. You also appear to find it “disturbing” that people support someone that is doing a good job - there has always been a difference between marketing and operations, and it is rather weird you find that disturbing - and appreciate stability, or love working for a team that gets shit done.
To address your initial strawman, why would workers quit when the boss leaves? Besides all the normal reasons listed above, they also might not like the remaining folks, or they may have lost faith in those folks, given the epic clusterfuck they turned this whole thing into. All other issues aside, if I would see my leadership team fuck up this badly, on so many levels, i’d be getting right out of dodge.
These are all common sense, adult considerations for anyone that has an IQ and age above room temperature and that has held down a job that has to pay the bills, and combining that with your general tone of voice, I’m going to take a wild leap here and posit that you may not be asking these questions in good faith.
That would imply they couldn’t have considered that Altman was beloved by vital and devoted employees? That big investors would be livid and take action? That the world would be shocked by a successful CEO being unceremoniously sacked during unprecedented success, with (unsubstantiated) allegations of wrongdoing, and leap on the story. Generally those are the kinds of things that would have come up on a "Fire Sam Pro and Cons" list. Or any kind "what's the best way to get what we want and avoid disaster" planning session. They made the way it was done the story, and if they had a good reason, it's been obscured and undermined by attempting to reinstate him.
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