I think you fundamentally misunderstand the role of the board of directors. It's often been said that the board (of any company) has basically one job: to hire (and fire) the CEO. While that may be a slight exaggeration, the wisdom behind that quote is that things turn out badly when the board meddles in decisions of a company's executive leadership - if they don't like the decisions being made, they should replace the CEO, and that's where their power lies.
You talk about "filing formal complaints" - what does this even mean?? They're the board, who else would they file formal complaints to? "Hand off Sam's responsibilities to other people"?? Again, any corporate governance expert would say that's a recipe for disaster, never mind not even feasible the way corporate hierarchies work.
I've commented many times before that I think the way the board handled the Altman's filing was, at best, woefully naive, and their communication at the time (even after he was fired) abysmal. But neither do I think it was some sort of "coup", and your recommendations simply don't make sense.
Yes. In a formal board meeting, not in an secretive one behind Altman and Brockman's back. That's what makes it seem more like a coup.
> They're the board, who else would they file formal complaints to?
Like I said in other comments. It's always useful to have a paper trail.
> "Hand off Sam's responsibilities to other people"?? Again, any corporate governance expert would say that's a recipe for disaster, never mind not even feasible the way corporate hierarchies work.
If Altman is neglecting and being opaque about AI safety, as Toner claims, then the board should appoint someone to lead this effort and be fully transparent with them. I don't see how this is so far fetched.
No, that is absolutely not the role of the board (and I mean any board, not just OpenAI's), and that's the point I was trying to make. It is the CEO's role to define the org structure of the company. If the board feels that this structure doesn't meet their corporate goals, they don't go in and say "No, actually, we demand you create this AI safety group with a separate head that reports directly to us." Their option is instead to fire the current CEO and hire a different one who they believe is more aligned with their values.
https://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-yahoo-meeting-...
What the Yahoo Board was doing was essentially bringing in their own set of advisers.
But regardless, the board had six members. Altman was actively trying to grow the board (and would presumably add loyal allies), and had previously tried to kick Toner off the board. So just by sheer numbers it's obvious they had to move quietly before they acted. And you saying this is "unprecedented" is just weird - CEOs are fired with little warning all the time, and if they also have board seats, the board members who want to fire them usually figure out if they have enough support before hand.
I think the thing we're probably agreeing on is that the board just handled the communication abysmally. I don't know how they thought they could fire Altman without a detailed explanation, especially to their partners like MS.
It isn't justified, it's just misleading propaganda. Unfortunately through repetition and the enthusiasms of various fandoms, it's gotten lodged in the public mind.
It's not unusual to exclude people with conflicts from a decision. That's a typical part of a corporate conflict of interest policy, and for a charity nonprofit board (as the OpenAI board is) it's even more critical, since failute to do so risks the tax-exempt status.
> "We were very careful, very deliberate about who we told, which was essentially almost no one in advance, other than obviously our legal team and so that's kind of what took us to to November 17."
If that doesn't sound like a secret coup, I don't know what does. Like, yes, it is their job to hire and fire the CEO so it's not really a coup, but when you do your "job" in secret instead of in the open that's the vibe you give off.
I’d be curious if you believe differently how you feel boards usually advertise such an action?
For example, a lot of the pressure that caused them to reverse course came from Microsoft. Maybe if the board had discussed such a big decision without OpenAI's biggest investor, Microsoft would've been on board with the firing.
Like, is your argument really "you don't know how boards work" when this is a fantastic example of a board completely failing at the basics of the job?
People lie and cover things up all the time from oversight bodies like boards. The board isn’t some god like entity that either knows all or is incompetent. They’re a collection of humans operating off the information given to them. Once they realize the information is erroneous or incomplete it’s often their duty to replace that leadership. And if they believe further they can’t trust the principals involved these things are often done in secret.
Finally the for profit nature of the subsidiary is entirely irrelevant. The board is a non profit board which has an entirely different responsibility set and accountability than a for profit board, and the subsidiary being for profit doesn’t change the nature of their duty in the least - in fact to preserve their non profit status they have to be -extra- careful with how they treat business related to the for profit subsidiary to ensure a conflict of interest doesn’t invert the relationship between for profit and non profit missions. Informing outside investors of non profit board governance decisions likely inverts that relationship and jeopardizes the non profits charter.
Is a Board firing the CEO typically conducted differently?
For their own records. They can use it for justification for disciplinary action or legal ammunition. It is always useful to document things in writing. It's the same reason why companies will put you on PIP.
The board's mistake was not figuring out a way to go public with their case against Sam when or before they fired him. They obviously misjudged how he would respond. But even there we don't know the full context and constraints they were under. Hopefully, one of them will answer that question of why they didn't at some point, but until we know more, we would be wise to reserve judgement.
The evidence is in this interview. It sounded like the board basically let Altman walk all over them until they suddenly decided that they wanted to fire him, but by then it was too late. For example, if they had a thorough paper trail documenting all of his lies, they could threaten a lawsuit pressuring him to resign. If YC fired him, they likely would have used a similar strategy to pressure him to step down without any blowback.
This is extremely confused about the board's responsiblities and powers. A court would laugh this case out of court because the board _can just fire him_.
Not to mention that if he was vengeful, it would be much easier to do damage from within and from a position of power.
Joke aside, the CEO can be a promoter of hype with no particular management skills - if the shareholders, via the board, are happy with that, their money their risks.
Does the same reasoning not apply to supposed-to-be-trusting business relationships?
Yes. Nobody involved in this comes out looking very good IMO.
OpenAI is fated to implode in scandal. His 7 trillion dollar funding round ambition is a blaring siren to anyone with a working brain that he’s out of control and capable of doing real damage. He wants a sum of money that could crash the world economy. He thinks he should have the power of the world’s most powerful government. Solely dictated by his whim. He makes Napoleon and Hitler look like pikers.
He is Musk in 2016, when some of us knew who he was, and the fans were still enthralled.
You will look back and say “No one knew” and this comment will be there. We knew.
Musk will end up the Bush to his Trump. We will fondly recall the crimes of a guy who just wasn’t as bad as what followed. Why do you think Musk hates him so much? He’s a better Musk than Musk. He’s the guy who took OpenAI out from under him. It’s envy.
Yes, and just to be clear -- That one guy was a diver who put his life at risk to save trapped children from an underwater cave, a rescue operation in the span of which a Thai Navy Seal actually died. Furthermore, Musk went on record stating that he had took a further step of hiring a private investigator to dig up dirt on the guy, not before he called the guy a pedo, but after when the reality of getting sued began to sink in.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....
The US was already a leader in aerospace, by a lot.
He called someone a pedo who didn't deserve it on Twitter, and then bought and managed to tank said platform, to the point where it is the go-to for nazis and propagandists.