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.
This has moved from the kind of decision a person makes on their own, based on their own conscience, and has become a public display. The media is naming names and publicly counting the ballots. There is a reason democracy happens with secret ballots.
Consider this, if 500 out of 770 employees signed the letter - do you want to be someone who didn't? How about when it gets to 700 out of 770? Pressure mounts and people find a reason to show they are all part of the same team. Look at Twitter and many of the employees all posting "OpenAI is nothing without its people". There is a sense of unity and loyalty that is partially organic and partially manufactured. Do you want to be the one ostracized from the tribe?
This outpouring has almost nothing to do with profit vs non-profit. People are not engaging their critical thinking brains, they using their social/emotional brains. They are putting community before rationality.