Sam Altman and Greg Brockman Joint Statement

[acjohnson55]

I think we just experienced an all-time moment in corporate politics. It's kind of like Steve Jobs being fired, but if it happened immediately after the Apple II. It feels like OpenAI has already cemented its place in history, whether or not it becomes a titan for the long run.

[nostrademons]

It's very, very common.

Remember when Jack Dorsey was ousted from Twitter and replaced by Evan Williams, who was himself ousted and replaced by Dick Costolo, who was replaced when Dorsey came back? Or the drama around Yishan Wong's sudden resignation as Reddit CEO, to be replaced by Ellen Pao, to be replaced as the founder Steve Huffman came back? The Flexport drama last month where the hired CEO was replaced by the founder? The movie "The Social Network"? Going back a bit, Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack's ouster from Cisco, or Diane Green and Mendel Rosenblum's ouster from VMWare?

Build something successful and there will be a lot of infighting about who gets to control it.

[woeirua]

If this was a palace coup based on a disagreement on direction, then OpenAI is done. Microsoft won’t be able to trust the board going forward, and so the money will dry up. Most of the talent will follow Sam/Greg. OpenAI will wither on the vine.

That said, I feel like more is to come out still. The board made serious accusations.

[minimaxir]

Microsoft won't trust the board regardless because they weren't in-the-loop for a material event which tanked their stock.

[mxwsn]

I agree this is likely disastrous for OpenAI's current corporate structure, and Microsoft will be very unhappy. But as an ML researcher, I suspect lots of researchers are going to continue to follow Ilya, unless his reputation has significantly changed (he does seem a lot more doomer-y recently ...)

[minimaxir]

It appears the reporting was accurate: Ilya staged a coup.

Notably, Sam/Greg do not guess or insinuate why he did a coup.

[BryantD]

This is too incomplete to reach any conclusions. The board made claims about a specific class of activity. They may or may not have been more specific in their conversations with Sam and Greg. Either way the credibility accusation needs more than just a timeline to refute it.

Maybe it was a coup as per some reporting; maybe it wasn’t. I’m reluctant to make a decision here based on who got to the reporters first. There is some asymmetry in media savvy between Sam and the board.

[adamdegas]

Apparently due to Sam's ego and wanting to use OpenAI to achieve a Musk-like cult status: https://old.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/17xoact/sam_altman_...

[7e]

You’re taking the word of the fired verbatim on Twitter? There are multiple sides to every story. For legal reasons, the board may never give exact details.

[Imnimo]

What I still don't get about all this is if this is just a case of Ilya deciding to play board room Game of Thrones because he has a different vision for OpenAI than Sam and Greg, why throw Sam under the bus with this line in the announcement:

"Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities."

This really reads like Sam did something wrong and had it coming. But Greg and Sam's statement make it sound like Ilya just wanted to go another direction and got the votes. Why make Sam out to be the bad guy if there was no wrongdoing?

[ssnistfajen]

The joint statement was still intentionally refraining from the details, merely revealing the manner the firing decision was delivered. Ilya & rest of the board had a reason to do this and that reason isn't being disclosed by any involved party yet.

[TillE]

This statement makes it sound like they're confused about why Sam was fired, but Sam's original tweet does not convey any hint of that. Compare:

https://twitter.com/sama/status/1725631621511184771

[woeirua]

This is why I think there are more shoes to drop still. That language is exceptionally specific and harsh.

[impulser_]

Why is everyone talking about Sam like he's the scientist and engineer behind OpenAI?

I seen people compare him to Oppenheimer lol.

Did he actually build anything at OpenAI or did he just manage it?

[dougmwne]

Ilya just self-immolated the hottest company of the decade with an 80 billion dollar valuation, all to make a point that he thinks AGI is too close and that safety needs to come first before all else. That’s quite the statement!

[m_ke]

Sounds to me like it wasn't just Ilya, but the whole research and engineering team that was tired of his shit. See: https://www.reddit.com/user/Anxious_Bandicoot126

[transcriptase]

At this point whenever I see someone concerned about "safety" with respect to AI, I assume it's either someone who wants to:

a) Make sure it's sufficiently neutered as to not say something offensive or incongruent with certain ideologies, make certain topics off-limits

or

b) Scare lawmakers into making it impossible for anyone to catch up to OpenAI et al, so they can reap the benefits of cutting-edge AI while keeping the public placated with incremental improvements to outdated and sufficiently hobbled models

[elfbargpt]

Something to consider: the post announcing his firing is now the 7th most upvoted post on hacker news and climbing. Does Sam Altman really deserve that much attention for his role in OpenAI, and is the fact that it's getting this much attention part of the reason he was kicked?

Zuckerberg started Fb in his dorm and Steve Jobs left his mark on every inch of their flagship products. Altman was positioned to be the next "Jobs / Zuckerberg" but I can't say I know he really deserved it as much as people seem to think. Obviously open to completely changing my mind.

[solardev]

It's probably more the tone of the firing letter, with the accusation about some scandal that we've yet to hear about, from a company that from the outside seemed to be at the top of its game.

It's a lot more popcorn than we usually get from corporate announcements.

[whatusername]

This is hacker news. Sam was the founder of a startup in the very first round of YC. He then later became president of YC. I expect news of him to resonate more around here.

And OpenAI have been the most exciting tech company of the last 12 months.

[minimaxir]

The news is getting extra attention because it's bizarre, unexpected, and could possibly take down a multi-billion dollar company.

[evilduck]

I don't particularly care about Sam Altman but seeing turbulence at OpenAI is interesting news.

[gzer0]

I find this absolutely baffling to have occurred.

Even more so now than ever, I don't think this corporate structure will survive.

[solardev]

They found the shift key!!

[minimaxir]

More accurately, their lawyers did.

[yunichel]

Ilya is an idealist. I respect it

[drcode]

we don't know anything right now

[lannisterstark]

... If this was supposed to clear things up, it didn't. I'm even more confused now.

[convexstrictly]

The whole sequence of events sounds amateurish and extremely unprofessional!

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

These people in the Twitter thread are distracted by use of Google Meet. Have they never compared it to Micrsoft Teams. Or Zoom. All these are painful to use, if for nothing else besides the companies behind them, but there's quite a difference between Meet and the others.

[ssnistfajen]

Sounds exactly like a coup despite Ilya claiming it wasn't one.

But other than that, the details are still pretty lacking. The drama is only getting started and whatever comes next from both sides will be even more interesting.

[aidaman]

1) What

[cryptoz]

"more to say about what's next" in Sam's tweet earlier, and now,

"greater things are coming"

huh, do they already have a plan or is this just generic optimism?

[s1artibartfast]

Probably generic optimism backed by realistic track records. If you spend 20 years founding and running companies, it stands to think there will be another one.

[dougmwne]

Clearly they will have a new AI startup by Monday.

[wyy1995]

Maybe after Sam Altman and Greg Brockman leave, people will realize how important they are to OpenAI.

[m_ke]

Their main value add was Sam's network, which is probably why they were able to raise so much money, close the deal with Microsoft and get a ton of YC companies to sign on early on.

Now that they're so well established and intertwined with Microsoft Sam's personal network is not as important.

[yunichel]

Meh, I think Ilya and John Schulman (TRPO, PPO, RLHF) are way more important. There are many others of course

[gzer0]

Possibility of @karpathy leaving and joining them to form a viable competitor?

[numair]

This reminds me of the time at Facebook when one of OpenAI’s current board members was upset that the Director of Facebook Platform was getting more praise and attention than he was, in his role as Co-Founder and CTO (or whatever). That caused a lot of problems, from which the Facebook Platform never recovered.

People who start out petty usually remain that way. There’s a lot of people in this world whose happiness depends on others doing just a little bit worse-off than them.

If I was a developer building on OpenAI’s platform today, I would begin putting my contingency plans into place.

[rvz]

Caesar stabbed right in the back and the coup had been made clear by their closest founders.

Jealously and greed strikes once again, someone was more greedier than the rest.

Also why are all the links and sources from Twitter / X? We were told repeatedly it was dead? It seems that this drama suggests that it isn't.

[strikelaserclaw]

Caesar was a total asshole