zlacker

>>davidb+(OP)
- Cant be a personal scandal, press release would be worded much more differently

- Board is mostly independent and those independent dont have equity

- They talk about not being candid - this is legalese for “lying”

The only major thing that could warrant something like this is Sam going behind the boards back to make a decision (or make progress on a decision) that is misaligned with the Charter. Thats the only fireable offense that warrants this language.

My bet: Sam initiated some commercial agreement (like a sale) to an entity that would have violated the “open” nature of the company. Likely he pursued a sale to Microsoft without the board knowing.

>>baidif+aq
Altman has claimed before that he doesn't hold equity in OpenAI. He could have some kind of more opaque arrangement that gives him a material stake in the financial success of OpenAI, and downplayed it or didn't disclose it to the board.

Who knows, though -- I'm sure we'll find out more in the next few weeks, but it's fun to guess.

>>pbadam+vz
Yeah that's my guess too. The claim that he doesn't hold equity always struck me as suspect. It's a little like SBF driving around in the Toyota Corolla while buying tens of millions of dollars of real estate for himself and his family.

It's better to claim your stake in a forthright way, than to have some kind of lucrative side deal, off the books.

For a non-profit, there was too much secrecy about the company structure (the shift to being closed rather than Open), the source of training data, and the financial arrangements with Microsoft. And a few years ago a whole bunch of employees left to start a different company/non-profit, etc.

It feels like a ton of stuff was simmering below the surface.

(I should add that I have no idea why someone who was wealthy before OpenAI would want to do such a thing, but it's the only reason I can imagine for this abrupt firing. There are staggering amounts of money at play, so there's room for portions of it to be un-noticed.)

>>chubot+3K
I always assumed that it was about as meaningful as Jobs and the '$1 salary'.

>>lazyas+4X
Yeah, although I guess you can read that as: "I will do everything I can to raise the stock price, which executives and employees both hold", then it actually makes sense.

But that $1 salary thing got quoted into a meme, and people didn't understand the true implication.

The idea is that employee and CEO incentives should be aligned -- they are part of a team. If Jobs actually had NO equity like Altman claims, then that wouldn't be the case! Which is why it's important for everyone to be clear about their stake.

It's definitely possible for CEOs to steal from employees. There are actually corporate raiders, and Jobs wasn't one of them.

(Of course he's no saint, and did a bunch of other sketchy things, like collusion to hold down employee salaries, and financial fraud:

https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-jobs-dodged-the-stock-optio...

The SEC's complaint focuses on the backdating of two large option grants, one of 4.8 million shares for Apple's executive team and the other of 7.5 million shares for Steve Jobs.)

I have no idea what happened in Altman's case. Now I think there may not be any smoking gun, but just an accumulation of all these "curious" and opaque decisions and outcomes. Basically a continuation of all the stuff that led a whole bunch of people to leave a few years ago.