zlacker

If they had said "Sam has helped OpenAI tremendously over the years, and we thank him for his invaluable contributions. Going forward, he will be using his skill set to pursue other opportunities, while OpenAI continues its mission to advance AI for the betterment of humanity."

That would at least made it seem like they knew what they were doing.

But investors would have still beaten them over the head.

>>pauldd+(OP)
Yes, that's true. But that's exactly the kind of thing that would have at least given it a semblance of being an orderly decision and it would have stopped a ton of negative press in its tracks.

It's like a dance, you can't just go do the Polka if everybody expects a Waltz, that's going to attract a ton of attention. They should have gotten out in front of any potential blowback to ensure that even if their decision was by the book (which for their sake I hope it was) that it also didn't ruffle the scales of very large dragons.