Without knowing the real reasons behind it, it's very difficult to hold an opinion on the board's decisions
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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I don’t mind so much what they did with firing him, but how they did it, and everything since. It just seems extremely unprofessional and disorganized.
This is what I expect from the anarchist hacker spaces I used to hang out in in Oakland, not from a multibillion dollar company.
I don't really fully understand it either but Altman has been a questionable character for a long time.
I remember when he took over ycombinator, Paul Graham boasted "if Altman got dropped onto an island full of cannibals, within three months he'd be king of the cannibals." PG thought this was terrific but I thought "why the hell would you leave someone like that in charge of your VC fund?" Altman had gotten the spot running the firm after failing out of his startup. He failed out of ycombinator and then managed to do that thing where he inexplicably failed at bigger and bigger things raising more money somehow every time.
It sounds like that's what he's doing now quite honestly. Rumor is he's been beating around the middle east raising billions for a new AI chip startup. Honestly while Elon has normalized CEOs wandering off and doing other things, the fact is that for any normal employee that alone would be grounds for dismissal, especially if he was being evasive with the board about his plans.
I'm not gonna say I know much about his history, but I am surprised so many people are jumping to take his side in this debacle. I would've thought in this day and age that people would be a bit more sceptical of CEOs.
I am with you. I’m still apprehensive about a lot of the how OpenAI handles data, but this is the first move in a while that has made me consider their product; to take this kind of risk means someone in charge actually believes in the thing beyond just being a golden goose.
Musk still has legions of fan boys; I'm not terribly surprised the eternally optimistic futurism fan boys have found another company-face to worship
I'm not taking his side so much as I'm just taking whatever side is inflicting damage to OpenAI
Right? I know Sam Altman sucks but I don't know if he was fired for more profit or less, or what exactly is going on. I'm not sure how to react to these articles besides surprise and bemusement.
Why does he suck? I know nothing about him.
Crypto bro, wants to scan everybody's eyes with AI, has this weird startup that puts eye scanners in orbs and places them around the world where people are curious and stare into them having their eyes scanned.
He's just a weird dude in general.
Just because I were curious enough to check this out, from Wikipedia:
Worldcoin aims to provide a reliable way to authenticate humans online, to counter bots and fake virtual identities facilitated by artificial intelligence. Using a distribution mechanism for its cryptocurrency similar to UBI, Worldcoin attempts to incentivize users to join its network by getting their iris scanned using Worldcoin's orb-shaped iris scanner.
Does it also mention that he basically deployed it exclusively in the third world, in places that the regulations were/are lax?
I think you got it backwards. The scanning was available everywhere, including the US... where the lack of privacy regulations allowed him to siphon biometric data without giving any crypto in exchange.
He isn't a "crypto bro", he's a guy who hyped the danger of AI in order to get as much biometric data as possible, everywhere.
Also other personal things about him in general
Rumor is since the board aren't investors, they're not looking for money from the venture.
Worse, some of them are Ethical Altruists, just like Sam Bankman Fried of FTX
This is embarrassing for them. I can understand ousting a CEO, but the board needs to go into that and leave it with confidence. If I were an investor I'd be very nervous about the state of the company, this shows they are very unsure about the future of the company. I'd say no one is at the wheel right now
First of all, fuck profit and investors. If you want to do good, you have to disregard them.
Second, I'm pretty sure bringing him back was a push by Google, not the board exactly.
This gives me a lot more faith the company will stick to it's guns and not turn into short-term profit seekers only. However, I don't know if the new CEO is a good choice. They should have taken someone from a non-profit or something.
Rather push by Microsoft instead of Google?
Oh, yeah. It might be MS. Whichever one it is...
I mean I agree but shouldn't they have stayed a nonprofit then?
They still are. The nonprofit board that fired sam altman owns both the profit seeking venture and the entity responsible for controlling the profit venture. I haven’t dug deep enough to be sure who if anyone can oust the board
Almost like it is not a for-profit company, and the investors interests are not a priority...
But why would they do such a thing? /s
This reads like a train wreck start to finish.
The outpouring of unprompted employee support speaks more to me than anything else and puts me firmly in Altman's camp. I can only think of a few bosses I've had in my life who would that reaction from their teams under these circumstances.
I've got a solution. Why don't the employees control the company? Fuck this nonsense of the employees liking the old CEO or whatever. How about we make them democracies. What a concept!
Lol it probably went something like, " sam sorry we fired you, please come back"
"Ok sure, 30% share in OAI, or fuck off"
"We can't do that!"
"Ok then fuck off"
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Shear will take over as interim OpenAI CEO from Mira Murati, who was publicly aligned with Altman.
The hiring of Shear appears to close the door on Altman’s exit after he was fired Friday when the board said he had not been “consistently candid in his communications.” As we reported Saturday, the board quickly began discussing the CEO’s return under pressure from investors and the threat of a mass employee walkout.
On Saturday night, sources told The Verge the remaining board members had missed a 5PM PT deadline to resign and reinstate Altman and fellow co-founder Greg Brockman or face a slew of staff resignations.
After the deadline passed, droves of OpenAI employees started posting their support for Altman on social media.
OpenAI’s profile has skyrocketed since the launch of ChatGPT, which quickly became one of the fastest-growing services ever and kicked off a tech gold rush over generative AI.
Earlier this month, Altman reported that the service has over 100 million weekly users.
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