zlacker

>>medler+(OP)
The board seems truly incompetent here and looking at the member list it doesn't seem very surprising. A competent board should have asked for legal and professional advice before taking a drastic step like this. Instead the board thought it was a boxing match and tried to deliver a knockout punch before the market closes with blunt language. This might be the most incompetent board for an organisation of this size.

>>crop_r+w3
The major investors whose money is on the line and who are funding the venture, Microsoft, Sequoia, and Khosla, were not given advanced warning or any input in to how this would impact their investment.

I would definitely say the board screwed up.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/17/openai-in...

>>silenc+kz
The board of the non-profit (one that fired Sam) has no fiduciary duty to those investors, I believe. Microsoft invested in the for-profit Openai, which is owned by the non-profit. The other ones I don't know.

The board has no responsibility to Microsoft whatsoever regarding this. Sam Altman structured it this way himself. Not to say that the board didn't screw up.

>>MVisse+jK
That Microsoft agreed to such a deal is negligence of the highest order.

>>jnwats+dQ
It might have been the only deal on the table. Perhaps they thought the risk was worth it - good processes don't always lead to good outcomes. Perhaps they felt that the rights they gained to the GPT models was worth it even if they don't get direct influence over OpenAI.

Between Bing, o365, etc. etc. etc. it's possibly they could recoup all of the value of their investment and more. At the very least it is a significant minimization of the downside.