If they were super-duper worried about how Sam was going to cause a global extinction event with AI, or even just that he was driving the company in too commercial of a direction, they should have said that to everyone!
The idea that they could fire the CEO with a super vague, one-paragraph statement, and then expect 800 employees who respect that CEO to just... be totally fine with that is absolutely fucking insane, regardless of the board's fiduciary responsibilities. They're board members, not gods.
I still believe in the theory that Altman was going hard after profits. Both McCauley and Toner are focused on the altruistic aspects of AGI and safety. Altman shouldn't be at OpenAI and neither should D’Angelo.
But why would anyone expect 800 people to risk their livelihoods and work without a little serious justification? This was an inevitable reaction.
Sure, they don't have to. How did that work out?
Four CEOs in five days, their largest partner stepping in to try to stop the chaos, and almost the entirety of their employees threatening to leave for guaranteed jobs at that partner if the board didn't step down.
If Altman was silent and/or said something like "people take some time off for Thanksgiving, in a week calmer minds will prevail" while negotiating behind the scenes, OpenAI would look a lot less dire in the last few days. Instead he launched a public pressure campaign, likely pressured Mira, got Satya to make some fake commitments, got Greg Bockman's wife to emotionally pressure Ilya, etc.
Masterful chess, clearly. But playing people like pieces nonetheless.