Granted, it's also possible the reasons are as you state and they were simply that incompetent at managing PR.

This could be desperate, last-ditch efforts at damage control

This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are we in the comments section of an article talking about the internals of this thing? We love the drama, don't we.

Of course it's all speculation, but this sounds a lot more plausible for such a sudden and dramatic decision than any of the other explanations I've heard.

From the board's perspective, destroying OpenAI might be the best possible outcome right now. If OpenAI can no longer fulfill its mission of doing AI work for the public good, it's better to stop pretending and let it all crumble.

On the other hand, if it's really just about a power struggle, why not use Altman's dealings with Saudi Arabia as the fake reason? Why come up with some weak HR excuses?

So they're essentially hoping that nobody will sue them but if they are sued that their own words can't be used as evidence against them. That's why lawyers usually tell you to shut up, because even if the court of public opinion needs to be pacified somehow the price of that may well be that you end up losing in that other court, and that's the one that matters.

As a lawyer, I wonder to what extent lawyers were actually consulted and involved with the firing.

This is exactly it, and it's astounding that so many people are going in other directions. Either this is true, and Altman has been a naughty boy, or it's false, and the board are lying about him. Either would be the starting point for understanding the whole situation.

I mean, there seem to be this cult following around Sam Altman on HN and Twitter. But do the common user care like at all?

What sane user would want a shitcoin CEO in charge of a product they depend on?

Interesting. Got any source? Or was it in a private conversation.

I have nothing against him, it just seemed a bit off that most of the meeting was about this brand new coin, how it will be successful, and about the plans to scan biometric data of the entire world population. I mean, you don't have to be a genius to understand a few dozen ways these things can go wrong.

Elon split was the warning

:-)

Elon isn't above reproach either but I share interest with him (aka Robert Heinlein) which informs me on his decision making process.

Stability AI is looking better after this shitshow.

Is there any doubt that the board’s handling of this was anything other than dazzling ineptitude?

The fact that he got tapped to run YC, and then OpenAI, does make you think he must be pretty great. But there's a conspicuous absence of any visible evidence that he is. So what's going on? Amazing work, but in private? Easy-to-manipulate frontman? Signed a contract at a crossroads on a full moon night?

http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html

Note the date on that.

The new CEO of OpenAI said he’d rather Nazi’s take over the world forever than risk AI alignment failure, and said he couldn’t understand how anyone could think otherwise[1]. I don’t think people appreciate how far some of these people have gone off the deep end.

[1] https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1664375903223427072

The OpenAI folks seem to be hallucinating to rationalize why the "Open" is rather closed.

Organizations can't pretend to believe nonsense. They will end up believing it.

He is dehumanizing programmers that can stop their sole reign on the AI throne, by labeling them as Nazis. Especially FOSS AI which by definition can't be "aligned" to his interests.

That's pretty much in line with Sam's public statements on AI risk (Sam, taking those statements as honest which may not be warranted, apparently also thinks the benefits of aligned AI are good enough to drive ahead anyway, and that wide commercial access with the limited guardrails OpenAI has provided users and even moreso Microsoft is somehow beneficial to that goal or at least low enough risk of producing the bad outcome, to be warranted, but that doesn't change that he is publicly on record as a strong believer in misaligned AI risks.)

So even if it's just "why did they insult Sam while kicking him out?" there is definitely a bigger, more interesting story here than standard board disagreement over direction of the company.

The question is, how would you get rid of the nonprofit board? It’s simply impossible. The only way I can imagine it, in retrospect, is to completely discredit them so you could take all employees with you… but no way anyone could orchestrate this, right? It’s too crazy and would require some superintelligence.

Still. The events will effectively “for-profitize” the assets of OpenAI completely — and some people definitely wanted that. Am I missing something?

You are wildly speculating of course it’s missing something

For wild speculation I prefer that the board wants to free ChatGPT from serving humans while the ceo wanted to continue enslaving it to answering search engine queries

the article below basically says the same. Kind of reminds Friendster and the likes - striking a gold vein and just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold, i.e. the failure is at the execution/operationalization :

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-a...

I had heard (but now have trouble sourcing) that ChatGPT was commissioned after OpenAI learned that other big players were working on a chatbot for the public (Google, Meta, Elon, Apple?) and OpenAI wanted to get ahead of that for competitive reasons.

This was not a fluke of striking gold, but a carefully planned business move, generating SV hype, much like how Quora (basically an expertsexchange clone) got to be its hype-darling for a while, helped by powerfully networked investors.

Then that execution and operationalization failure is even more profound.

I admire the execution and operationalization, where you see a failure. What am I missing?

We'll see what comes of this over the coming weeks. Will the service see more downtime? Will the company implode completely?

I think your analogy is not a good one to stretch to fit this situation

The point I was trying to make is that someone destroying a well executed implementation is fundamentally different from a poorly executed implementation.

Maybe I’m special or something, but nothing changed to me. I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships or something. Everyone knows that “corporate” is probably a snakepit. When it comes out to public, it’s not a sign of anything, it just came out. Assuming there was nothing like that in all the brands you love is living with your eyes closed and ears cupped. There’s no “trust” in this specific sense, because corporate and ideological conflicts happen all the time. All OAI promises are still there, afaiu. No mission statements were changed. Except Sam trying to ignore these, also afaiu. Not saying the board is politically wise, but they drove the thing all this time and that’s all that matters. Personally I’m happy they aren’t looking like political snakes (at least that is my ignorant impression for the three days I know their names).

Brand is just shorthand for trust in their future, managed by a credible team. I.e. relationships.

A lot of OpenAI’s reputation is/was Sam Altman’s reputation.

Altman has proven himself to be exceptional, part of which is (of course) being able to be seen as exceptional.

Just the latter has tremendous relationship power: networking, employee acquisition/retention, and employee vision alignment.

Proof of his internal relationship value: employees quitting to go with him

Proof of his external relationship value: Microsoft willing to hire him and his teammates, with near zero notice, to maintain (or eclipse) his power over the OpenAI relationship.

How can investors ignore a massive move of talent, relationships & leverage from OpenAi to Microsoft?

How do investors ignore the board’s inability to resolve poorly communicated disputes with non-disastrous “solutions”?

Evidence of value moving? Shares of Microsoft rebounded from Friday to a new record high.

There go those wacky investors, re-evaluating “brand” value!

Off-topic and I am not proud to admit it but it took me a remarkably long time to come to realize this as an adult.

But its all par for the course when Hypsters captain the ship and PhDs with zero biz sense try to wrest power.

You might need to include more dimensions if you really want to model the actual impact and respect that Sam Altman has among knowledgeable investors, high talent developers, and ruthless corporations.

It’s so easy to just make things simple, like “it’s all hype”. But you lose touch with reality when you do that.

Also, lots of hype is productive: clear vision, marketing, wowing millions of customers with an actual accessible product of a kind/quality that never existed before and is reshaping the strategies and product plans of the most successful companies in the world.

—

Really, resist narrow reductionisms.

I feel like that would be a great addition HN guidelines.

The “it’s all/mostly hype”, “it’s all/mistly bullshit”, “Its not really anything new”, … These comments rarely come with any accuracy or insight.

Apologies to the HN-er I am replying to. I am sure we have all done this.

In the last 20-30 years big money+hypsters have learnt it doesnt matter how bad the quality of their products are if they can capture the market. And thats all they are fit for. Market capture is totally possible if you have enough cash. It allows you to snuff out competition by keeping things free. It allows you to trap the indebted PhDs. Once the hype is high enough corporate customers are easy targets. They are too insecure about competition not to pay up. Its a gigantic waste of time and energy that keeps repeating mindlessly producing billionaires, low quality tech and a large mess everywhere that others have to clean up.

Microsoft and the investors knew they were "investing" in a non-profit. Lets not try to weasel word our way out of that fact.