Everyone says Sam can start a newco so easily, but he'd lose the data, codebase and deployed infrastructure, and a lot of knowledge. If people think it's devastating for OpenAI to lose 1/3 of its employees, Sam would basically be starting with the equivalent of an OpenAI that lost 2/3, along with all the other problems. Of course, with enough time and money he can recover, but I don't think it would be that easy. And to Sam, such a slowdown when he had so much momentum before may be the hardest thing to accept.