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
While this may be technically true, the reality is that when you take $10 billion from a company there are strings attached. Consultation on a decision of this magnitude is one of those strings. You can choose to push ahead anyway after this is done but dropping the news on them 1 minute before you pull the trigger is unacceptable and MSFT will go for the throat here. You can't be seen to be a company that can be treated like this at MSFT level when you have invested this much money in any org.

>>TapWat+u41
Once you take in 10 billions then it’s pretty much the opposite, legality is the only things that matter.

>>hcks+t51
Did they take a wire transfer for $10bn in cash, now sitting in their bank account? Or did they get a promise of various funding over N years, subject to milestones, conditions, in a variety of media including cash, Azure credits, loan lines etc.

I'd imagine the latter, and that it can be easily yanked away.

>>rich_s+h61
You mean the latter, but yeah. Financing like that is doled out based on a number of things; it would be wildly irresponsible to do otherwise for reasons exactly like this.