Please stop. No employee is loyal to any CEO based on some higher order matter. They just want to get their big pay day and will follow whoever makes that possible.

That is part of effective leadership, strategy, and management.

I didn't say anything about higher order values. Getting people to want what you want, and do what you want is a skill.

Hitler was an extraordinary leader. That doesn't imply anything about higher values.

No, the 90% of the employees were scared that their million $ salaries are going away along with Sam Altman.

stock options were probably the focus rather than the salaries

There was about to be a secondary stock purchase by Thrive where employees could cash out their shares. That likely would've fallen apart if the board won the day. Employees had a massive incentive to get same back.

Yeah, it should be extremely obvious the reason most of the employees were willing to walk is they've hitched their wagons to Altman. The board of openai put the presumed party day all of them were anticipating in jeopardy. Not all of us live in this god forsaken place to "work with cool tech".

Sounds like a good way to to secure your position as leader.

My job also secures my loyalty and support with a financial incentive. It is probably the most common way for a business leader to align interests.

Kings reward dukes, and generals pay soldiers. Politicians trade policies. That doesn't mean they arent leaders.

There’s also the alternative explanation that they feel their financial situation is improved by him being there.

almost every decision here, except for the board, can be accounted for by financial decisions.

Especially with putting Larry Summers on the board with this tweet.

Yes yes, but that doesn't change the fact that Sam positioned himself to be unfireable. The board took their best shot and now the board is (mostly) gone and Sam is still the chief executive. They board will find itself sidelined from now on.

I thought about it for a minute. I came to the conclusion that OpenAI would have likely tanked (perhaps even within days) had Altman not returned to maintain the status quo, and engineers didn't want to be out of work and left with worthless stock.