He made the right calls, fast, with limited information.
Things further shifted from plan a to b to… whatever this is.
Despite that, MSFT still came out on top.
Consider if Satya didn’t say anything. Suppose MSFT stood back and let things play out.
That’s a gap for google or some competitor to make a move. To showcase their stability and long term business friendly vision.
Instead by moving fast, doing the “right” thing, this opportunity was denied and used to MSFTs benefit.
If the board folded, it would return to the stays quo. If the board held, MSFT would have secured OpenAI, for essentially nothing.
Edit: changed board folded x2 to board folded + board held, last para.
From where I sit Satya possibly messed up big. He clearly wanted Sam and the Open AI team to join microsoft and they won't now, likely ever.
By offering a standing offer to join MS publicly he gave Sam and OpenAI employees huge leverage to force the board's hand. If he had waited then maybe there would have been an actual fallout that would have lead to people actually joining microsoft.
While having OpenAI as a Microsoft DeepMind would have been an ok second-best solution, the status quo is still better for Microsoft. There would have been a bunch of legal issues and it would be a hit on Microsoft's bottom line.
Additionally - I have not seen someone else talk about this, its just been a few days. Calling it a narrative is a stretch, and dismissive by implying manipulation.
Finally why would Sam joining MSFT be better than this current situation?
Either by keeping OpenAI as-is, or the alternative being moving everyone to Microsoft in an attempt to keep things going would work for Satya.