Regardless of who ends up at the helm, OpenAI is going to be a different place on Monday than it was on Thursday, and not for the better.
Obviously Sam wasn’t the best fit for OpenAI and investors aren’t even saying what the problem is. Clearly the board feels he was the wrong person for the job.
I think it’s ridiculous that everything thinks that Sam being outed means OpenAI is in trouble. Let this play out and see how it evolves
This is embarassing for OpenAI no matter how you slice it.
the former went on garden leave for 6 months (actually even before the Vega launch) to make a movie with his brother, and then resigned to “spend more time with his family”, before popping up again a month later at intel. That’s what it looks like when they want you to go away but they don’t want to make a big scene over it.
the latter fucked up so badly the board found a reason to kick him out without a golden parachute etc, despite the official reason (dating another employee) being something that was widely known for years, other than being a technical no-no/bad idea in general. he wasn’t kicked out because of that, he was kicked out for the combination of endless fab woes, spectre/meltdown, and bad business/product decisions that let AMD get the traction to become a serious competitor again. That’s what it looks like when the board is absolutely furious and pushes whatever buttons inflict the most pain on you.
Ironic that it’s a bit of an auto-antonym (auto-antoidiom?), it’s ceremonious when they want you to go away quietly and it’s unceremonious when they publicly kick your ass to the curb so hard you’ve got boot marks for a week.