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The one piece of this that I question is the employee motivations.

First, they had offers to walk to both Microsoft and Salesforce and be made good. They didn't have to stay and fight to have money and careers.

But more importantly, put yourself in the shoes of an employee and read https://web.archive.org/web/20231120233119/https://www.busin... for what they apparently heard.

I don't know about anyone else. But if I was being asked to choose sides in a he-said, she-said dispute, the board was publicly hinting at really bad stuff, and THAT was the explanation, I know what side I'd take.

Don't forget, when the news broke, people's assumption from the wording of the board statement was that Sam was doing shady stuff, and there was potential jail time involved. And they justify smearing Sam like that because two board members thought they heard different things from Sam, and he gave what looked like the same project to two people???

There were far better stories that they could have told. Heck, the Internet made up many far better narratives than the board did. But that was the board's ACTUAL story.

Put me on the side of, "I'd have signed that letter, and money would have had nothing to do with it."

>>Ration+(OP)
I was thinking the same. The letter symbolized a deep distrust with leadership over the mission and direction of the company. I’m sure financial motivations were involved, but the type of person working at this company can probably get a good paycheck at a lot of places. I think many work at OpenAI for some combination of opportunity, prestige, and altruism, and the weekend probably put all 3 into question.