What does Altman bring to the table besides raising money from foreign governments and states, apparently? I just do not understand all of this. Like, how does him leaving and getting replaced by another CEO the next week really change anything at the ground level other than distractions from the mission being gone?
And the outpouring of support for someone who was clearly not operating how he marketed himself publicly is strange and disturbing indeed.
Of course, some employees may agree with the doom/safety board ideology, and will no doubt stay. But I highly doubt everyone will, especially the researchers who were working on new, powerful models — many of them view this as their life's work. Sam offers them the ability to continue.
If you think this is about "the big bucks" or "fame," I think you don't understand the people on the other side of this argument at all.
OpenAI would not exist if FAANG had been capable of getting out of it's own way and shipping things. The moment OpenAI starts acting like the companies these people left, it's a no brainer that they'll start looking for the door.
I'm sure Ilya has 10 lifetimes more knowledge than me locked away in his mind on topics I don't even know exist... but the last 72 hours are the most brain dead actions I've ever seen out of the leadership of a company.
This isn't even cutting your own nose of to spite the face: this is like slashing your own tires to avoid going in the wrong direction.
The only possible justification would have been some jailable offense from Sam Altman, and ironically their initial release almost seemed to want to hint that before they were forced to explicitly state that wasn't the case. At the point where you're forced to admit you surprise fired your CEO for relatively benign reasons how much must have gone completely sideways to land you in that position?