The allegations from his sister aside (not discrediting them, I’m just not well informed on that atm), it’s been really strange seeing so many comments cheering for Sam Altman and dunking on the openAI board (handpicked by Altman himself btw) for this whole farce. We have no info on what’s happening inside, just 3rd party hearsay and speculation.
Not only that, the guy who allegedly led Altman’s ousting, Ilya Sutskever, signed the employee resignation letter asking to reinstate Altman as CEO.
OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who reportedly led the push to remove Altman, noted on X (formerly Twitter) that he had some regrets about the weekend of chaos inside OpenAI. “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI,” said Sutskever. “I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
And somehow Microsoft ends up the biggest winner out of this entire situation. I don’t consider myself conspiracy minded…but what the hell is going on here?
it’s been really strange seeing so many comments cheering for Sam Altman
It’s the same with Elon’s cult. People probably really believe that Sam is a genius and the one who made ChatGPT (just like Elon’s fanboys really believe that he’s involved with Tesla’s engineering), so they see him, alongside Elon, as a symbol of meritocracy and they get angry at the board for ousting someone just because they’re “afraid” of a “genius”.
Agreed. I do not know Sam, but I do know smart people who push the boundary of tech and they are all heads down deep into whatever and have little time for talk. Talk is cheap.
Mark my words, this was a hostile poaching operation by Microsoft. Like 65% convinced this was the case. We won’t know until 10 years have passed and some dumb emails end up in discovery on some unrelated lawsuit.
- Sam wants to push for more & quicker profit with MS and VC backing, but board resists, constant conflicts
- Sam aligns with MS, hatch a plan on how to gut OpenAI for its know-how, ppl, and tech, leaving the non-profit part bleeding out in the gutter
- Sam & MS set a trap: Sam crosses some red lines, maybe taking commercial decisions without board approval. Potentially there was also some whispering in key ears (e.g, Ilya) by seemingly helpful advisors/VCs to push & pull at the same time on both sides
- Board has enough after Sam doesn’t back down, fires him & other co-founder guy
- MS and VCs go full attack to discredit board. After some info gathering, they realize they have been utterly fucked
- Some chaos, quick decision of appointing/replacing ppl, trying to manage the fire, even talking to Sam (btw this might have been a fallback option for MS, that the board reinstates him with more control and guardrails, weakening the power of the non-profit)
- Sam joins MS, masks are off
- Employees on the sinking ship revolt, even Ilya realizes he was manipulated/fucked
- OpenAI dead, key ppl join MS, tech and rest of the company bought for scraps. Non-profit part dead. Capitalist victory
Source: subjective interpretation/deduction based on the available info and my experience working as a management consultant for 10 years (dealing with lot of exec politics, though nothing this serious)
But then why wouldn’t the board say exactly why Altman was removed?
“Least said, soonest mended,” as the saying goes: if you want the cleanest break possible, say as little as possible. It’s probably also why the board fired him via a virtual meeting after close of business on a Friday.
By stark contrast, both Altman and Brockman were on Twitter almost immediately thereafter, joined shortly by armies of supporters, making absolutely sure that everything happening over the weekend was as public as possible, almost play by play, and was also openly joined in the constant public commentary by the CEO of Microsoft, who became Altman’s employer less than 48 hours later.
Note that I’m not saying it’s wrong. But in regard to point #3 made above by @[email protected] it all seems almost planned, especially when you throw in this tidbit from The Guardian:
Sam Altman ‘was working on new venture’ before sacking from OpenAI
Sam Altman, the recently sacked boss of OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT bot, was telling investors he planned to launch a new company before his shock departure, it was claimed.
No other info, but IF it’s true AND Altman was openly talking about planning a competitive service, then it does lend credence to the thought that Altman wanted to go, and to leave in such a way that he got to take whoever he wanted with him, because that is the kind of shit that gets you fired from your own board.
Probably shouldn’t rehire someone you probably fired over sexually assaulting his sister…
There is a post on lesswrong which compiles the accusations made by the sister. Having worked with many incest victims, family scapegoats and Cinderellas I’ll say the story is familiar to what I’ve heard before and therefore credible.
Please link that.
You’ve been downvoted, but the posts from his sister definitely don’t look great, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was why the board kicked him out.
I’m getting downvoted by embrassed billionaires 😂
