People keep talking about this. That was never going to happen. Look at Sam Altman's career: he's all about startups and building companies. Moreover, I can't imagine he would have agreed to sign any kind of contract with OpenAI that required exclusivity. Know who you're hiring; know why you're hiring them. His "side-projects" could have been hugely beneficial to them over the long term.
How can you make a claim like this when, right or wrong, Sam's independence is literally, currently, tanking the company? How could allowing Sam to do what he wants benefit OpenAI, the non-profit entity?
Let's take personalities out of it and see if it makes more sense:
How could a new supply of highly optimized, lower-cost AI hardware benefit OpenAI?
Honestly, I think they did that to themselves.
Before the boards' actions this friday, the company was on one of the most incredible success trajectories in the world. Whatever Sam's been doing as a CEO worked.