The board may have been incompetent and shortsighted. Perhaps they should even try and bring Altman back, and reform themselves out of existence. But why would the vast majority of the workforce back an open letter failing to signal where they stand on the crucial issue - on the purpose of OpenAI and their collective work? Given the stakes which the AI community likes to claim are at issue in the development of AGI, that strikes me as strange and concerning.
Sam promised to make a lot of people millionaires/billionaires despite OpenAI being a non-profit.
Firing Sam means all these OpenAI people who joined for $1 million comp packages looking for an eventual huge exit now don't get that.
They all want the same thing as the vast majority of people: lots of money.