I think the dispute hinges on what it means to be "doing well". In most companies, you can at least all point to the same thing, even if you disagree on how you get there: creating shareholder value.

But in this case, the company was doing things that could be seen as good from a shareholder value perspective, but the board has a different priority. It seems they may think that the company was not working on the right mission anymore. This is an unusual set up, so it's not that surprising that unusual things might happen!

I've worked for two companies with a board and a CEO. I think generally employees listen to and interact with CEO more than the board.

Some of them probably don't know who's on the board before Saturday, like the rest of us.

Why should we trust them to “align” their chatbots if they couldn’t even align themselves?

Loyalty? I could believe closest colleagues, that were in constant contact. But 500… is a bit too much to hold any warmy feelly bonds. Greed is simpler explanation.

I wouldn't attribute to emotions and loyalty that which is sufficiently explained by greed.

who in their right mind has "emotions" and even "loyalty" for a CEO? and so much to the point that they'd quit their jobs over the CEO's departure? the reality is that people didn't join OpenAI because of sam altman. they joined the company because they got paid (handsomely) to do some interesting work.

It’s just an anecdote but I quit a job because the CEO fired an extremely good manager that I worked with. If a company has issues, a good person getting fired can lead to a mass exodus. In my case about half of the developers followed closely after me.

in that case you were losing your immediate manager so your personal circumstances were about to change significantly.

however, in the case of sam altman getting fired, it's not clear that anything that OpenAI is doing is about to change and it's not clear that these devs would suddenly have to change course. Also, it's not like Sam / OpenAI has any integrity anyway - the idea that it's "open" is totally fraudulent.

So in every possible scenario it’s wrong to have emotions and loyalty for a CEO, who’s also a human, and may have had a profound, even life-changing effect on you?

Seeing your CEO as a deified subject is a serious crisis in the tech industry

Possibly so, but every single CEO in the world is not some evil automaton.