[hooande]

Alternative theory: ChatGPT was a runaway hit product that sucked up a lot of the organization's resources and energy. Sam and Greg wanted to roll with it and others on the board did not. They voted on it and one side won.

There isn't a bigger, more interesting story here. This is in fact a very common story that plays out at many software companies. The board of openai ended up making a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will. That's all there is to it.

[rtpg]

The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is. The general idea of "Altman was signing a bunch of business deals without board approval, was told to stop by the board, he said he would, then proceeded to not stop and continue the behavior"... that feels like the juicy bit (if that is in fact what was happening, I know nothing).

This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are we in the comments section of an article talking about the internals of this thing? We love the drama, don't we.

[mcv]

This certainly feels like the most likely true reason to me. Altman fundraising for this new investment, and taking money from people the board does not approve of, and Altman possible promised not to do business with.

Of course it's all speculation, but this sounds a lot more plausible for such a sudden and dramatic decision than any of the other explanations I've heard.

[twic]

> The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is

This is exactly it, and it's astounding that so many people are going in other directions. Either this is true, and Altman has been a naughty boy, or it's false, and the board are lying about him. Either would be the starting point for understanding the whole situation.

[stareatgoats]

Agreed, court intrigue. But it is also the mundane story of a split between a board and a CEO. In normal cases the board simply swaps out the CEO if out of line, no big fuss. But if the CEO is bringing in all the money, having the full support of the rest of organization, and is a bright star in mass media heaven, then this is likely what you get: the CEO flaunts the needs of the board and runs his own show, and gets away with it, in the end.

[rightbyte]

> a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will

I mean, there seem to be this cult following around Sam Altman on HN and Twitter. But do the common user care like at all?

What sane user would want a shitcoin CEO in charge of a product they depend on?

[twic]

Altman is an interesting character in all of this. As far as i can tell, he has never done anything impressive, in technology or business. Got into Stanford, but dropped out, founded a startup in 2005 which threw easy money at a boring problem and after seven years, sold for a third more than it raised. Got hired into YC after it was already well-established, and then rapidly put in charge of it. I have no knowledge of what went on inside, but he wrote some mediocre blog posts while he was there. YC seems to have done well, but VC success is mostly about your brand getting you access to deal flow at a good price, right? Hyped blockchain and AI far beyond reasonable levels. Founded OpenAI, which has done amazing things, but wasn't responsible for any of the technical work. Founded that weird eyeball shitcoin.

The fact that he got tapped to run YC, and then OpenAI, does make you think he must be pretty great. But there's a conspicuous absence of any visible evidence that he is. So what's going on? Amazing work, but in private? Easy-to-manipulate frontman? Signed a contract at a crossroads on a full moon night?

[benterix]

Yeah, there definitely seem to be some personality cult around Sam on HN. I met him when he visited Europe during his lobbying tour. I was a bit surprised the CEO of one of the most innovative companies would promote an altcoin. And then he repeated how Europe is crucial, several times. Then he went to the UK and laughed, "Who cares about Europe". So he seems like the guy who will tell you what you want to hear. Ask anybody on the street, they will have no idea who the guy is.

[dumpsterdiver]

What do common users and zealots have to do with the majority of OpenAI employees losing faith in the board’s competence and threatening a mass exodus?

Is there any doubt that the board’s handling of this was anything other than dazzling ineptitude?

[chaostheory]

Mistakes aside, Altman was one of the earliest founders recruited by Paul Graham into YC. Altman eventually end up taking over Ycombinator from pg. He’s not just a “shitcoin” ceo. At the very least, he’s proven that he can raise money and deal with the media

[bnralt]

I’ve said this before, but it’s quite possible to think that Altman isn’t great, and that he’s better than the board and his replacement.

The new CEO of OpenAI said he’d rather Nazi’s take over the world forever than risk AI alignment failure, and said he couldn’t understand how anyone could think otherwise[1]. I don’t think people appreciate how far some of these people have gone off the deep end.

[1] https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1664375903223427072

[johnnymorgan]

Nope, we do not. I was annoyed when he pivoted away from the mission but otherwise don't really care.

Stability AI is looking better after this shitshow.

[wruza]

The board of openai ended up making a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will

Maybe I’m special or something, but nothing changed to me. I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships or something. Everyone knows that “corporate” is probably a snakepit. When it comes out to public, it’s not a sign of anything, it just came out. Assuming there was nothing like that in all the brands you love is living with your eyes closed and ears cupped. There’s no “trust” in this specific sense, because corporate and ideological conflicts happen all the time. All OAI promises are still there, afaiu. No mission statements were changed. Except Sam trying to ignore these, also afaiu. Not saying the board is politically wise, but they drove the thing all this time and that’s all that matters. Personally I’m happy they aren’t looking like political snakes (at least that is my ignorant impression for the three days I know their names).

[Nevermark]

> I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships

Brand is just shorthand for trust in their future, managed by a credible team. I.e. relationships.

A lot of OpenAI’s reputation is/was Sam Altman’s reputation.

Altman has proven himself to be exceptional, part of which is (of course) being able to be seen as exceptional.

Just the latter has tremendous relationship power: networking, employee acquisition/retention, and employee vision alignment.

Proof of his internal relationship value: employees quitting to go with him

Proof of his external relationship value: Microsoft willing to hire him and his teammates, with near zero notice, to maintain (or eclipse) his power over the OpenAI relationship.

How can investors ignore a massive move of talent, relationships & leverage from OpenAi to Microsoft?

How do investors ignore the board’s inability to resolve poorly communicated disputes with non-disastrous “solutions”?

Evidence of value moving? Shares of Microsoft rebounded from Friday to a new record high.

There go those wacky investors, re-evaluating “brand” value!

[tsimionescu]

Except that the new CEO has explicitly stated he and the board are very much still interested in commercialization. Plus, if the board had on this simple kind of disagreement, they had no reason to also accuse Sam of dishonesty and bring about this huge scandal.

Granted, it's also possible the reasons are as you state and they were simply that incompetent at managing PR.

[codeduck]

> Except that the new CEO has explicitly stated he and the board are very much still interested in commercialization

This could be desperate, last-ditch efforts at damage control

[austhrow743]

Straight forward disagreement over direction of the company doesn't generally lead to claiming wrongdoing on the part of the ousted. Even low level to medium wrongdoing on the part of the ousted rarely does.

So even if it's just "why did they insult Sam while kicking him out?" there is definitely a bigger, more interesting story here than standard board disagreement over direction of the company.

[dr_dshiv]

From what I know, Sam supported the nonprofit structure. But let’s just say he hypothetically wanted to change the structure, e.g. to make the company a normal for-profit.

The question is, how would you get rid of the nonprofit board? It’s simply impossible. The only way I can imagine it, in retrospect, is to completely discredit them so you could take all employees with you… but no way anyone could orchestrate this, right? It’s too crazy and would require some superintelligence.

Still. The events will effectively “for-profitize” the assets of OpenAI completely — and some people definitely wanted that. Am I missing something?

[127]

>good will

Microsoft and the investors knew they were "investing" in a non-profit. Lets not try to weasel word our way out of that fact.

[trhway]

>Alternative theory: ChatGPT was a runaway hit product that sucked up a lot of the organization's resources and energy. Sam and Greg wanted to roll with it and others on the board did not.

the article below basically says the same. Kind of reminds Friendster and the likes - striking a gold vein and just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold, i.e. the failure is at the execution/operationalization :

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-a...

[Zolde]

ChatGPT was too polished and product-ready to have been a runaway low-key research preview, like Meta's Galactica was. That is the legacy you build around it after the fact of getting 1 million users in 5 days ("it was build in my garage with a modest investment from my father").

I had heard (but now have trouble sourcing) that ChatGPT was commissioned after OpenAI learned that other big players were working on a chatbot for the public (Google, Meta, Elon, Apple?) and OpenAI wanted to get ahead of that for competitive reasons.

This was not a fluke of striking gold, but a carefully planned business move, generating SV hype, much like how Quora (basically an expertsexchange clone) got to be its hype-darling for a while, helped by powerfully networked investors.

[bertil]

Then, the solution would be to separate the research arm from a product-driven organization that handles making money.

[sumitkumar]

Usually what happens in fast growing companies is that the high energy founders/employees drive out the low energy counterparts when the pace needs to go up. In OpenAI Sam and team did not do that and surprisingly the reverse happened.

[NewEntryHN]

Give it a week until it is exactly that that did actually happen (not saying it has been orchestrated, just talking net result).

[aerhardt]

Surely the API products are the runaway products, unless you are conflating the two. I think their economics are much more promising.

[LastTrain]

Yep. I think you've explained the origins of most decisions, bad and good - they are reactionary.