Specifically:
> Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.
> it remains the fundamental governance responsibility of the board to advance OpenAI’s mission and preserve the principles of its Charter.
So the board did not have confidence that Sam was acting in good faith. Watch any of Ilya's many interviews, he speaks openly and candidly about his position. It is clear to me that Ilya is completely committed to the principles of the charter and sees a very real risk of sufficiently advanced AI causing disproportionate harm.
People keep trying to understand OpenAI as a hypergrowth SV startup, which it is explicitly not.
Sounds like firing was done to better serve the original mission, and is therefore probably a good thing. Though the way it's happening does come across as sloppy and panicky to me. Especially since they already replaced their first replacement CEO.
Edit: turns out Wikipedia already has a pretty good write up about the situation:
> "Sutskever is one of the six board members of the non-profit entity which controls OpenAI.[7] According to Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, Sutskever was the primary driver behind the November 2023 board meeting that led to Altman's firing and Brockman's resignation from OpenAI.[30][31] The Information reported that the firing in part resulted from a conflict over the extent to which the company should commit to AI safety.[32] In a company all-hands shortly after the board meeting, Sutskever stated that firing Altman was "the board doing its duty."[33] The firing of Altman and resignation of Brockman led to resignation of 3 senior researchers from OpenAI."