What makes Sam Altman so damn special in this regard? Why is he immune to all these same adversarial interests and inputs where anyone else would be imperiled?
It's more "how" than "who" (although "who" also matters)
If the board talked to Altman and said, "hey this is the wrong direction" or "it's moving too fast." Then if they'd given him a chance to adjust. And only if they were unable to agree after a reasonable time, then they crafted a plan to responsibly change leadership after a transition period, that'd probably be fine.
But instead they just bounced him randomly and called him a liar publicly without any thought on who would step in. Who would want to work for them?
I think to a certain extent they knew how weak they were. They knew if it turned into a long drawn out protracted fight in public it would be bad for them. You can imagine it now - David Sacks going on a long rant about how they don't have skin in the game and they're woke etc. etc. What the board was there to do - act as a check on the for-profit part of the company, goes basically directly against what most people in silicon valley want. So I don't think it's unreasonable that they thought they needed to move before Sam shored up support from investors etc.
He's honestly a bit more "sympathetic" than this incorporeal Board even thought there is innuendo he's awful and there's obviously accusations re:sister altho she seems a little waffley based on what I've resd about her comments on the matter
Don’t think the former CEO of GitHub is going to be that alarmed about upsetting Sam Altman. You may be seeing their decision making through the lens of a no-name founder applying to YC for their first cheque.
How would that benefit him other than discrediting his sister? She's not 1000% credible already in my view based on the tenor of her claims but I'm open to correction.
I'd be more worried that all your employees don't want you there, and you'll be in for a lot of cold shoulder meetings every day. Doesn't sound like fun.
The "powerful" people outside, matter a lot less. No matter what you do, if you're influential, about half the powerful will hate you and half will love you.
Are you trolling? I answered your question in the clearest way I could think to.
I have no idea what the actual implications are of the relation. But it's there and it's suggested his network of friends from YC could bolster his position with OpenAI. No idea if that's true, but it's not like it is so strange a notion that it merits "playing dumb" like you're doing.
It just seems like such a weird claim. Like, does she have receipts to prove all these platforms are denying her? It just seems to be stretching credulity and I can't see how its possible for them to get this granular about it. I dunno, she needs to substantiate these things.
If 90% of the employees who signed the letter to dismiss the board would follow him, he is kind of special right now. Or maybe anyone in their right mind would side with the ousted CEO rather than an impulsive board.
OAI employees have $5-20m+ equity packages and want that number to grow, and they trust the guy who’s made himself the face of the company through its growth
The large financial stakes of OAI employees is more powerful than ideas about morality or idealism that are offered as the reasons here
They have an opportunity to sell equity next month as well in a second offering and obviously don’t want to wipe out that value suddenly. The workers stand to make hugely generational wealth overnight. Of course that’s on their mind as otherwise wage earners.
Am ai a bad person for considering this a reasonable heuristic for concluding the wrong decision was made and also that he may very well be the leader we need for OpenAI rather than the leader we deserve or would ideally best comport in that role?
Imagine the huge change the company took. They went from negotiating on a deal which would turn OpenAI into an 80 billion dollar company to this deal may no longer going through.
You would then be working under this huge change with a CEO with a mission to "slow down" and likely feeling much more constrained by the board. Altman would likely push back a lot more.
If the board talked to Altman and said, "hey this is the wrong direction" or "it's moving too fast." Then if they'd given him a chance to adjust. And only if they were unable to agree after a reasonable time, then they crafted a plan to responsibly change leadership after a transition period, that'd probably be fine.
But instead they just bounced him randomly and called him a liar publicly without any thought on who would step in. Who would want to work for them?