Engineer working at "INSERT BIG TECH COMPANY" is no guarantee or insight about critical thinking at another one. The control and power over OpenAI was always at Microsoft regardless of board seats and access. Sam was just a lieutenant of an AI division and the engineers were just following the money like a carrot on a stick.
Of course, the engineers don't care about power dynamics until their paper options are at risk. Then it becomes highly psychological and emotional for them and they feel powerless and can only follow the leader to safety.
The BOD (Board of Directors) with Adam D'Angelo (the one who likely instigated this) has shown to have taken unprecedented steps to remove board members and fire the CEO for very illogical and vague reasons. They already made their mark and the damage is already done.
Lets see if these engineers that signed up to this will learn from this theatrical lesson of how not to do governance and run an entire company into the ground with unspecified reasons.