[jacquesm]

> Do you see this as seriously affecting relationships with companies such as Microsoft? With end-users?

Absolutely. If there isn't a very good reason why they did this in this way then I fully expect the board to be replaced.

[sudosysgen]

Who is going to be replacing the board? Who has that authority?

[jacquesm]

Depending on how the bylaws are put together: the donors, the beneficiaries, the employees of the non-profit and any other stakeholders. Any of those acting alone or in concert could petition a court if the board doesn't voluntarily resign. And if the board split on this issue is a close one then that might happen easier.

[bbor]

I find the idea that some random court filing would succeed in recalling the board of the most high profile technology company in the world, based on “we felt that they were brusque and unprofessional”, to be very unlikely. I mean, MAYBE if some of them started going to prison, but otherwise… this seems like the realm of politics more than court proceedings. But maybe I’m missing some precedents?

[jacquesm]

How does 'we backtracked and re-instated him because we made an oopsie' sound compared to a 'random court filing'?

And yes, there are plenty of precedents of board members being recalled, most of them aren't stupid enough to fight it, especially not non-profit board members, who are supposed to do this all for glory and sunshine. Typically they are presented with a pre-written one pager with date and place already filled in and all they do is sign it or they'll find their position to be up for a vote. And of course, the ranks could close around this decision but that might make some extremely powerful enemies. Think 'Microsoft', Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Reid Hoffman, YC, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Infosys.

The combined onslaught of that would annihilate the board. So unless they made very sure they had plenty of backing on this decision they set themselves up for a very difficult situation.