zlacker

>>medler+(OP)
This makes no sense. People are calling what the board did a coup, but Altman is trying (failing?) to stage a coup.

The board was Altmans boss - this is pretty much their only job. Altman knew this and most likely ignored any questions or concerns of theirs thinking he is the unfireable superstar

Imagine if your boss fired you - and your response was - I’ll come back if you quit! Yeah, no. People might confuse status with those of actual ceo shareholders like zuck, bezos, or musk. But Altman is just another employee

The shareholders can fire the board, but that’s not what he’s asking for. And so far we haven’t heard anything about them getting fired. So mostly this just seems like an egomaniac employee who thinks he is the company (while appropriating the work of some really really smart data scientists)

>>shmatt+by
>People are calling what the board did a coup, but Altman is trying (failing?) to stage a coup.

The board removed the board's chairman and fired the CEO. That's why it was called a coup.

>The shareholders can fire the board, but that’s not what he’s asking for. And so far we haven’t heard anything about them getting fired

nonprofits don't have shareholders (or shares).

>>sigmar+9z
nope. a coup implies something that is outside of normal operation. the board removing the CEO can and will happen.

>>x86x87+gI
The fact that HN engineering grunts have no idea what table stakes are vs titles and authority shows how they aren’t cut out for executive brinksmanship.

Sam has superior table stakes.

>>tsunam+vJ
What does any of that have to do with whether it's a "coup" or not? "Coup" has an implication of illegitimacy, but by all accounts the board acted within its authority. It doesn't matter if it was an ill-advised action or if Altman has more leverage here.

>>djur+yM
There's a distinction between what's technically allowed and what's politically allowed. The board has every right to vote Sam and Greg off the island with 4/6 voting in favor. That doesn't mean they won't see resistance to their decision on other fronts, and especially those where Sam and Greg have enough soft power that the rest of the board would be obviously inadvised to contradict them. If the entire media apparatus is on their side, for example (soft power), then the rest of the board needs to consider that before making a decision that they're technically empowered to make (hard power).

IMO, there are basically two justifiably rational moves here: (1) ignore the noise; accept that Sam and Greg have the soft power, but they don't have the votes so they can fuck off; (2) lean into the noise; accept that you made a mistake in firing Sam and Greg and bring them back in a show of magnanimity.

Anything in between these two options is hedging their bets and will lead to them getting eaten alive.

>>chatma+KR
Except You are discounting the major player with all the hard power who can literally call any shot with money

>>tsunam+TU
You mean Microsoft, who hasn't actually paid them the money they said they will eventually, and who can change their Azure billing arrangement at any time?

Sure, I guess I didn't consider them, but you can lump them into the same "media campaign" (while accepting that they're applying some additional, non-media related leverage) and you'll come to the same conclusion: the board is incompetent. Really the only argument I see against this is that the legal structure of OpenAI is such that it's actually in the board's best interest to sabotage the development of the underlying technology (i.e. the "contain the AGI" hypothesis, which I don't personally subscribe to - IMO the structure makes such decisions more difficult for purely egotistical reasons; a profit motive would be morally clarifying).