[dannykwells]

This should be higher voted. Seems like an internal power struggle between the more academic types and the commercial minded sides of OpenAI.

I bet Sam goes and founds a company to take on OpenAI…and wins.

[thomassmith65]

Yes, and wins with an inferior product. Hooray /s

If the company's 'Chief Scientist' is this unhappy about the direction the CEO is taking the company, maybe there's something to it.

[lll-o-lll]

Because the Chief Scientist let ideology overrule pragmatism. There is always a tension between technical and commercial. That’s a battle that should be fought daily, but never completely won.

This looks like a terrible decision, but I suppose we must wait and see.

[dmix]

You're putting a lot of trust in the power of one man, who easily could have the power to influence the three other board members. It's hard to know if this amounts more than a personal feud that escalated and then got wrapped in a pretty bow of "AI safety" and "non-profit vs profits".

[quickthrower2]

You can’t win with an inferior product here. Not yet anyway. The utility is in the usefulness of the AI, and we’ve only just got to useful enough to start really being useful for daily workflows. This isn’t a ERP type thing where you outsell your rivals on sales prowess alone. This is more like the iPhone3 just got released.

[adrr]

Inferior product is better than an unreleased product.

[paulddraper]

Maybe.

But Altman has a great track record as CEO.

Hard to imagine he suddenly became a bad CEO. Possible. But unlikely.

[csomar]

I don't see it. Altman does not seem hacker-minded and likely will end up with an inferior product. This might be what led to this struggle. Sam is more about fundraising and getting the word out there but he should keep out of product decisions.

[deepGem]

Brockman is with Sam, which makes them a formidable duo. Should they choose to, they will offer stiff competition to OpenAI but they may not even want to compete.

[sujayk_33]

Maybe now he'll focus on worldcoin instead?

[quickthrower2]

I bet not (we could bet with play money on manifold.markets I would bet to 10% probability). Because you need the talent, the chips, the IP development, the billions. He could get the money but the talent is going to be hard unless he has a great narrative.

[erhaetherth]

I'll sell my soul for about $600K/yr. Can't say I'm at the top of the AI game but I did graduate with a "concentration in AI" if that counts for anything.

[maneesh]

Isn't his narrative that he is basically the only person in the world who has already done this?

[taneq]

"I'll pay you lots of money to build the best AI" is a pretty good narrative.

[RyanShook]

The abrupt nature and accusatory tone of the letter makes it sound like more was going on than disagreement. Why not just say, “the board has made the difficult decision to part ways with Altman”?

[krick]

> Why not just say, “the board has made the difficult decision to part ways with Altman”?

That's hardly any different. Nobody makes a difficult decision without any reason, and it's not like they really explained the reason.

[adharmad]

From all accounts, Altman is a smart operator. So the whole story doesn’t make sense. Altman being the prime mover, doesn’t have sufficient traction with the board to protect his own position and allows a few non-techies to boot him out ?

[biddit]

Well connected fundraiser - obviously.

But…smart operator? Based on what? What trials has he navigated through that displayed great operational skills? When did he steer a company through a rocky time?

[bitcharmer]

I have no problem with getting rid of people obsessed with profits and shareholder gains. Those MBA types never deliver any value except for the investors.

[croes]

>I bet Sam goes and founds a company to take on OpenAI…and wins.

How? Training sources are much more restricted know.

[moogly]

Define "wins".