OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

[robg]

Looking more and more like the dev day nuking of D’Angelo’s Poe led to this outcome. I’m surprised that connection has escaped close scrutiny - it was a conflict of interest AND now Poe is viable again as intended. For a minor player in AI he’s managed to maximize his interests and while serving on a non-profit board.

[drexlspivey]

I see stuff like this spreading in social media and it’s always people speculating without any evidence. On Saturday it was a coup by Ilya, on Sunday it was a coup by effective altruists/decelerationists on the board, today is D’Angelo’s Poe getting eaten up tomorrow it will be something else.

Your theory collapses in the slightest amount of scrutiny, if D’Angelo tries to destroy the company due to his own company losing value why would the other 3 board members be on board with that? You’re not doing anyone any good speculating stuff like this just adding more noise.

[upwardbound]

This theory is endorsed by OpenAI's Head of Applied Research, Dr. Boris Power, who retweeted a Robert Scoble tweet saying this. See his twitter timeline here https://twitter.com/borismpower?lang=en

[NewEntryHN]

It has not escaped close scrutiny. It's just that people don't go around accusing a specific person without evidence.

[tucnak]

D’Angelo is certainly naive in his self-interest, and definitely not capable as to orchestrate this thing. Think of him like he's useful bastard, and now it's his turn to become the scape-goat bastard for everybody to hate. This is counter-spin for containment purposes. The real questions we should be asking is how come the NATSEC patriot-ladies on the board managed to exploit Sutskever in such blatant way, what that entailed, and what kind of psychosis it took to get there.

[infecto]

This will be a fun book to read after it's all done.

As its happening I had no idea what is going on though. Surely the board can not be this incompetent? Who kicks out a current CEO without having found a replacement or at the very least a shortlist. No evidence has come out that sama did anything egregious against OpenAI. Truly one of the most bizarre sequence of events I have ever witnessed.

[csunbird]

I believe they had a shortlist, but no one stepped up to take the job.

[throw_pm23]

Almost every story we get seems to point in the direction of the board being erratic and incompetent. I feel like either that has to be the obvious truth, or I am being gaslighted by a concerted effort from the other side.

[olalonde]

I also noticed an unusually high amount of throwaway accounts on OpenAI threads lately. I am not sure whether it's a concerted effort but Altman does seem to have a lot of fans.

[Tenoke]

What's erratic here? If they are likely to lose most of their employees and resources then merging with the most aligned other company is not only reasonable but exactly what it says they'll do in their charter.

[roflyear]

Not to get too conspiracy, but remember where you get your news from: HN, maybe reddit?

Guess which platforms have deep ties to Altman?

[thinkingemote]

The board has bylaws governing how it works. One of them says that it has to have 48 hours notice before a meeting (to, e.g. agenda, minutes, resolutions, actions ). I think a board member cannot speak officially before that. We might be an announcement today or tomorrow. Perhaps they have had to have a meeting to get legal advice before an announcement?

I think the board is just being as slow as any board is. But they didn't plan for the somewhat foreseeable response and we are impatient.

This is as charitable as I could think of.

[KaoruAoiShiho]

I think it comes across that way because they actually take the non-profit original mission and ethics more seriously than the for-profit business, which is an incomprehensible shock to most capitalists. However, it makes sense if Anthropic left in the first place because they didn't agree with sama's direction of the company, and this is just round 2 of the OAI civil war in regards to whether OAI's original non-profit mission ACTUALLY matters or not.

[diamondfist25]

This thread just shows why people in tech have 0 social intelligence and instead follows the trending mob fashion of the time.

[dnissley]

A writer for wired says they have reason to believe this story is a fabrication (although doesn't explain why):

https://twitter.com/willknight/status/1726793735143621058

[siva7]

The only difference: the informer is a respected publication while wired is wired and you're not gonna make it better with a claim and then not follow-up with any kind of evidence. But at this point it could be all fabrication. Journalism is mostly a joke at this point.

[DotaFan]

A lot of gaslighting, as OpenAI findings are a subject of national security.

[wyy1995]

Judging from the current situation, openai's board of directors are all shameless people. If they still have dignity, they should resign immediately. They were unqualified and incapable of managing one of the most important technology companies in the world, and they destroyed a shining company, a great product, and the dreams of countless people. I will never use Poe and Quora again, and I will boycott any product related to Adam D'Angelo. Adam D'Angelo is an asshole.He doesn't have any shares in OpenAI, so he doesn't care about destroying OpenAI at all.Absolutely ridiculous, the only reason I can think of is that he's extremely jealous of Sam.

[pr07ecH70r]

This whole thing becomes more and more like a Schooby and the Gang case. Let's see who's under the mask at the end. :D *Gonna need some popcorn.

[upwardbound]

Reposting what dnissley said that got downvoted:

Will Knight, a writer for Wired, is stating “I have reason to believe that the OpenAI Anthropic merger story is a complete fabrication”

https://twitter.com/willknight/status/1726793735143621058

[dang]

> Reposting what dnissley said that got downvoted:

Please don't do this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38363524 isn't even downvoted now.

[borissk]

The board is desperate. A $90B company turned overnight into a lemon nobody wants, despite having amazing tech and APIs. They need to find a way to keep at least 20% of the employees from leaving, as that will allow them to continue running the services that have paying customers.

[marban]

This looks more and more like the UBA merger in The Morning Show.

[jimsimmons]

Some journalists on X are claiming that this story is fabricated

[dongping]

Maybe some links please? I also don't want to share a fabricated story.

[siva7]

This could be counted as a felony against individual board members as there were clear conflict of interests among them with such a merger. I'm sure there will be lawsuits from the investors.

[alecco]

dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38357629

[JoeAltmaier]

Solution: an AI replaces the board.

Can't do much worse.

[matthewfelgate]

Netflix should hire whoever is writing the script for this drama. It's gripping!

[rapsey]

These people are going to get sued into oblivion.

[thiscatis]

I’m voting for Dan McCrum, Elliott Brown, Maureen Farrell, Duncan Mavin and Bethany McLean to team up and write the book to end all books about corporate stupidity.

[mihaic]

I tried not to have an opinion until now, but so far Altman seems like a greedy asshole, and D'Angelo seems like a greedier asshole.

That clash ended up terribly, since neither of them care about anything else than their best interests.

[hyperfuturism]

How is Altman a greedy asshole?

He's been at OpenAI since founding date, he's taken zero economic upside in this venture, and he's now being kicked out - what exactly makes him an asshole?