It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too short-sighted and reactive. Big techs will have incredible distribution power but a real disruptor must be brewing somewhere unnoticed, for now.
That they reached a different conclusion than the outcome you wished for does not indicate a lack of critical thinking skills. They have a different set of information than you do, and reached a different conclusion.
Only time will tell if this was a good or bad outcome, but for now the damage is done and OpenAI has a lot of trust rebuilding to do to shake off the reputation that it now has after this circus.
When you see 95%+ consensus from 800 employees, that doesn't suggest tanks and police dogs intimidating people at the voting booth.
I am not saying something nefarious forced it, but it’s certainly unusual in my experience and this causes me to be skeptical of why.
We have no idea that they were sacrificing anything personally. The packages Microsoft offered for people who separated may have been much more generous than what they were currently sitting on. Sure, Altman is a good leader, but Microsoft also has deep pockets. When you see some of the top brass at the company already make the move and you know they're willing to pay to bring you over as well, we're not talking about a huge risk here. If anything, staying with what at the time looked like a sinking ship might have been a much larger sacrifice.