At least one of them must jointly make this decision with the three outside board members. I’d say it’s more likely to be business related. (In addition, the CTO is appointed as the interim CEO.) (Edit: But obviously we currently don’t really know. I think the whistleblower theory below is possible too.)
The announcement: https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transiti...
“OpenAI’s board of directors consists of OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, independent directors Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology’s Helen Toner. …..
As a part of this transition, Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board and will remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO.“
Previous members: https://openai.com/our-structure
“Our board OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI Nonprofit, comprised of OpenAI Global, LLC employees Greg Brockman (Chairman & President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner.”
However big his transgressions may be, it's actual impact is finite, while the speculation can be infinite.
You misunderstand how these corporate situations work. He will fall upward to a better job someplace else if he chooses.
Adam Neumann, who started then destroyed WeWork, already raised $350 million from Andreessen Horowitz for another real estate company called Flow.
Well, he did get a few billion dollars of lesson on how to not run such a company, making him quite uniquely qualified for this position.
I'll argue in this day and age, that any founder/C-level person who has "created" billions in value, no matter how much of a paper tiger it is, will almost always get another shot. If SBF or Elizabeth Holmes weren't physically in prison, I bet they'd be able to get investment for whatever their next idea is.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/softbank-takes-14b-hit-wework...
Adam is good making people rich, but those people are not his investors.
Neumann and Holmes and SBF lost their benefactors money.
The claim is that investors are interested in executives who they perceive to have created billions in value, and that's analogous to how NFL teams are interested in people who run fast.
Yes: suggesting he was not as candid as necessary is business libel unless true.
And since Brockman was also booted, he may have been involved.
It's not clear what the Board was trying to do that he interfered with. There is no clear legal standard on what a CEO must divulge, and CEO's often get to wait to tell board members bad news until the whole board meets and the issue has been investigated.
OpenAI and ChatGPT are great and gets a lot of mind-share. But they are far from the only game in town and, at this still very-early stage of the tech cycle, the outwardly-visible leader can easily change in months.
NFL teams are interested in players that can actually run fast, not players that can say they do, but are found to be lying and it turns out they cannot run fast causing the team to lose.
> Only a minority of board members are allowed to hold financial stakes in the partnership at one time. Furthermore, only board members without such stakes can vote on decisions where the interests of limited partners and OpenAI Nonprofit’s mission may conflict—including any decisions about making payouts to investors and employees.
So given the latest statement from the board emphasizing their mission, it could be that Brockman and Sutskever were not able to participate in the board decision to fire Altman, making it a 3-to-2 or 4-to-1 vote against Altman.
(1) Unless there is public litigation in involved, OpenAI will not disclose the reason in susbtantial detail.
(2) It will not, more than momentarily, disrupt the whole AI market if they do not.
(If it is something that will disrupt the whole AI market, there is likely to be litigation and public information about the basis of the firing.)
Investors are interested in people they can use to make money. The latter are easier to use, but the former will suffice. It just depends on when you sell.
I take "fall upward" to be a typo of "fail upward".
The next sentence explicitly compares the situation to WeWork.
My interpretation is correct, it's a bizarre post, I'm done with this thread, have a good day.
I think the business of running a scam or a fraudulent company is quite different to an actual business.
Not OpenAI will fall upward. Sam Altman is not OpenAI, especially after this latest announcement.
The next sentence compares him to the WeWork CEO.
It's not OpenAI is like WeWork. It's the disgraced CEO of OpenAI is like the disgraced CEO of WeWork.
Now? Yes for Kenneth Lay (assuming he was still alive and/or not hiding on a desert island under a new identity if I put on my tin foil hat)... Madoff, probably not.
AND ... post the WeWork debacle, Neumann has once again succeeded in raising a massive investment.
I have no doubt that Altman is deeply embedded in the techbro good old boys network to get another job, but that doesn't change the fact his (now previous) employer released a blog post saying he LIED TO THE BOARD about something severe enough that they had to insta-sack him.
No clear transition plan. In what situations world a board fire the ceo from the worlds greatest tech sensation since who knows when, in a matter of hours ?
There is bound to be a few people who have a soft spot and will give him money again .