[lambic2]

I don't get this take. No matter how good you are at managing people, you cannot manage clowns into making wise decisions, especially if they are plotting in secret (which obviously was the case here since everyone except for the clowns were caught completely off-guard).

[JeremyNT]

Consider that Altman was a founder of OpenAI and has been the only consistent member of the board for its entire run.

The board as currently constituted isn't some random group of people - Altman was (or should have been) involved in the selection of the current members. To extent that they're making bad decisions, he has to bear some responsibility for letting things get to where they are now.

And of course this is all assuming that Altman is "right" in this conflict, and that the board had no reason to oust him. That seems entirely plausible, but I wouldn't take it for granted either. It's clear by this flex that he holds great sway at MS and with OpenAI employees, but do they all know the full story either? I wouldn't count on it.

[random_cynic]

If he has great sway with Microsoft and OpenAI employees how has he failed as a leader? Hackernews commenters are becoming more and more reddit everyday.

[93po]

There’s a LOT that goes into picking board members outside of competency and whether you actually want them there. They’re likely there for political reasons and Sam didn’t care because he didn’t see it impacting him at all, until they got stupid and thought they actually held any leverage at all

[TerrifiedMouse]

Can't help but feel it was Altman that struck first. MS effectively Nokia-ed OpenAI - i.e. buyout executives within the organization and have them push the organization towards making deals with MS, giving MS a measure of control over said organization - even if not in writing, they achieve some political control.

Bought-out executives eventually join MS after their work is done or in this case, they get fired.

A variant of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Guess the OpenAI we knew, was going to die one way or another the moment they accepted MS's money.