Nor is it usual for outgoing execs' successors to immediately try to rehire them, the majority of a company's staff to demand a CEO's reinstatement... never mind one of the board members who voted to get rid of him u-turning and adding his own name to that statement. Microsoft being surprised and a bit pissed off would have been expected. Microsoft finding room for Sam isn't wildly surprising. Microsoft announcing that it will try to poach every single member of OpenAI staff unless the board does what they want is not the sort of consequence you'd predict.
It was obvious this was going to get a bit more attention than the average CEO firing and they certainly screwed up the communication by providing just as much information with their initial statement to fuel speculation and then no further comment, but boards firing CEOs is normal and the entire company dying on the hill of trying to bring him back isn't.
Yes, literally anyone with sufficient professional corporate experience would have. This was instantly front-page news everywhere.
> I mean, it could have just been that Sam is gone, a new CEO joins, and things move on.
This isn't about replacing a CEO. This is about 4 members secretly getting rid of 2 other board members, including the chair and CEO, in a secret board meeting, with zero transparency and zero public justification backed by evidence. None of that is business as normal, things move on. This is as disruptive and shocking as things get.
> I find it very likely they just didn't expect that to happen at all.
Which is precisely what's so troubling -- it shows their extreme incompetence. This isn't a toy $1M company for amateurs to play with, it's an ~$80B company. This is the big leagues. The board is expected to be able to understand the consequences of its actions.