Asking people to disclose potential conflicts of interest casts a wider net — so they aren’t led to think “nah, that’s not a conflict, it’s a win win!”
A bunch of nerds just thought they could jump the gun here because they are inexperienced doofus’s when it comes to corp.
(If Altman doesn't want to be restricted by fiduciary duties then he shouldn't be on a board or be an executive.)
How could Altman possibly not use private OpenAI information regarding its hardware needs, when creating an AI hardware company he wants to serve OpenAI? And its competitors?
He could invest in a new AI hardware company created and run by other people (without his specific input) without a conflict. That does not appear to be the case here. He could create an OpenAI hardware subsidiary. Again not what he was doing.
Self-dealing CEO's and board members can, and are, convicted criminally and civilly of violating their fiduciary duties. And "can" and are fired with cause.
And in the tech-specific case: As much as junior engineers would love to believe in "superior" solutions, tech decisions are seldom clear-cut. There are many trade-offs: cost, efficiency, memory use, throughput, latency, ease of use, cost of switching, and many more. You always have a pile of pros and cons. Sometimes, one is strong enough, but most of the time, it feels almost like guessing/intuition. And then the conflict of interest becomes especially concerning.