Former GitHub CEO Friedman and Scale AI CEO Wang Declined OpenAI CEO Role

[wand3r]

Leaving aside much of the other craziness: Who did the board expect would replace him? Did they expect to install Ilya and he bailed last minute? How could you possibly be calling around on a weekend trying to recruit a CEO? Everyone is knocking the board, so I am not going to break new ground here, but WHAT TF were they thinking? My only thought is maybe they expected they could dump sama and slot in another high level figure and they would work it out, but there was so much immediate blowback that they bailed?

[divbzero]

I think they planned for Mira Murati to act as interim CEO, but were surprised when she wanted to rehire Sam Altman.

[lordnacho]

One perspective that one often hears, but nobody seems to have brought up here, is that the role of the board is essentially a kind of joke that doesn't really do what it says on the tin. A bunch of friends of the management, given a lot of money for very little work.

People here have even pointed out how unqualified they think the board members are, or how they have conflicts of interest.

Picture yourself in this world where you essentially get free money for pretending to advise a company. Most of the time, you don't need to do shit. Other people have got you covered, the company does some well known widget-making business and everyone has known since business school how the business works. You just nod your head when there's a board meeting and otherwise try to keep a good handicap at the country club. When there's a decision to be made, you feel out which side will win and hedge your bets. You've get several of these board jobs, and each of them thinks the other memberships are why they are hiring you.

One day, your friend invites you to be on the board of a company that does something truly new and interesting. In fact some people say this is the modern day Manhattan project, taking humanity into a new yet potentially dangerous age. It's prestigious, and you think how different can it really be to any other business?

As time passes, you realize your strategy of just doing whatever the other board members are doing is not going to work. There is this really big question of what you should do about keeping things "safe", a vague idea that you've heard of from some prominent employees. It dawns upon you that you might actually have to think about what to do.

Eventually, you crap yourself, and you decide to use some of the formal powers of the board. You saw on Silicon Valley that the board can depose the CEO, maybe that should be done? You know a bunch of people who have talked about AI in the past, perhaps one of them has a clue about what to do?

[HighFreqAsuka]

You'd be getting on the bad side of some of the most powerful people in tech and taking the helm of a company full of people who don't want you running it. It's not a surprise a lot of people don't want the role.

[Obscurity4340]

What makes Sam Altman so damn special in this regard? Why is he immune to all these same adversarial interests and inputs where anyone else would be imperiled?

[tempsy]

Emmett Shear is a YC insider and didn't hesitate...

[infoseek12]

And given the present turmoil they aren’t likely to remain in the position very long. Unless there are significant financial inducements, that vest without any tenure requirements, it’s hard to see an upside.

[adrr]

Because its a clown show and now you have a bunch of your talent leaving. You're always going to get compared with the former CEO. I can't believe anyone took the role.

[ulfw]

Great that it takes people months nowadays interviewing to get hired for a mid level role, but apparently you can offer a half dozen people unvested, uninterviewed CEO roles at a billion dollar company on a whim.

Fun how that goes.

[varenc]

The interview was “found a billion dollar tech company” and they all already passed.

[julianeon]

I think it's worth spelling out the difference.

The difference is that, for that mid level role, there are dozens of candidates who could fill it, who all look like good candidates on paper. It takes that long to sort through them all to find the person they like the most.

But imagine for a moment that they write a job description, and they can only expect a few people to meet the requirements ever, and you're one of them. Also the job should've been filled yesterday.

It's not going to take months to fill it. It'll take a week or less.

This was that situation. But normally, those executive searches take months.

You know who's a key player in this story, probably the most successful businessperson involved, who only got the CEO job after 5-6 months? Satya Nadella.

And he would probably agree with you that this was a terrible way to hire a CEO that reflects poorly on the company.

[latency-guy2]

I will absolutely hire a few people I have worked with to push out successful multi-million dollar projects over the last few decades over you.

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

Only on HN do you see salty comments like this

[paxys]

Slight difference in urgency in hiring someone to center align some buttons on a website vs lead a $90 billion company which is in chaos.

[Racing0461]

It's a big club, and you ain't in it.

[tbrownaw]

Supply & demand sure is fun.

[huytersd]

I mean they interview you because you’re a nobody off the street. Everyone already knows what these CEOs have done and accomplished because they lead very high profile public lives. What sort of imbecile tier whataboutism is this.

[swyx]

its gotta sting Emmett Shear that he's now known to be at least 3rd choice for the role... and may not even keep it

[swatcoder]

On the contrary, it probably feels like he's doing someone a favor. It's not a great role to accept right now.

[hshsbs84848]

You think CEOs actually think like that?

[siva7]

Only the desperate would take the job. Nat Friedman and Alex Wang have enough self-respect and are too clever to accept that offer from the board.

[nightshadetrie]

Taking the role would be like backstabbing YC. It would feel wrong.

[ipsum2]

Emmett Shear, current CEO of OpenAI, is a YC alum and a YC "visiting group" partner: https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-back-to-yc-emmett-s...

[threeseed]

And you wouldn't be in Satya's good books either.

They are trying to clean up this mess and now is not the time to be opportunistic.

[ecshafer]

That seems like a mess i wouldnt want to jump into.

[ClassyJacket]

I'll do it.

[dehrmann]

Can't blame them. This is a worse mess than being the CEO of X.

[croes]

OpenAI at least still has a valuable product.

[zht]

I find Alexandr Wang absolutely insufferable on Twitter. I am glad he declined it

[caditinpiscinam]

That plus the "digital" sweatshops

[pcurve]

"Interim CEO".

[jbverschoor]

There’s nothing not permanent than a temporary fix

[ackbar03]

Jesus, Alexandr's like 26. Can you imagine being at the helm of openai at 26

[zoogeny]

Scale.ai was valued at 7.3 billion in 2021, which was before the current AI craze.

I mean, OpenAI would be a step up in some regards under ideal circumstances. But under these circumstances he is wise to stay at his 10+ billion dollar company.

So, can you imagine having built and being at the helm of Scale.ai at 26?

[richard___]

mirati is 34...

[veeralpatel979]

Update (11/20/23 8 PM PST):

NYT just released a new interview with Sam Altman:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38359070

(I have not watched it yet, but will soon.)

[alberth]

In the intro, they say the interview was from last week.

So it’s way less interesting.