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The takeover where the board fired him, he left, the workers rebelled, and the board begged him to come back? I don't really see the connection with this other story.
A plausible conspiracy theory here is that he had already arranged the exit plan with Microsoft (remember how they had office space ready next Monday down the street from OAI offices -- not usually something you can do in the weekend even if you're Satya) and then instigated the crisis where the board fired him.
Which, if true, means the most important thing is not to take the bait.
I don't believe Sam is that Machiavellian.
People are bizarrely promoting the idea that OpenAI would be different if the board had not taken action. This makes no sense to me.
The board saw themselves slowly losing control, and decided to take action while they still had power. Too bad for them, it was already too late. The point of no return had already been reached. Sam didn't win because the board took action. He had already won, it just wasn't obvious yet.
Was Sam working to undermine the board and establish his own control the whole time? Yes. You'd have to be incredibly naive not to believe that, especially in light of the Reddit story.
The board's only mistake was not getting rid of Sam when they still had enough power to actually do it.
OK, I don't necessarily believe it either. I said it was one plausible story.
I agree with this.
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You mean Microsoft got the board to shoot themselves in the foot?
I don't remember the office space situation. Is this what you are talking about? www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-prepared-san-francisco-offices-for-openai-employees-2023-11
Looks like ms was repurposing office space they already owned, which is not very surprising. It was also intended for openai employees jumping ship which never happened, which kind of puts a damper on the theory.
What does taking the bait look like?
Repurposing space they already owned happened awfully fast on a weekend. Maybe they were nimble and saw the opportunity to scoop up sam and the defecting employees. I've worked at large firms, repurposing some space like that doesn't typically happen on a single Saturday.
I think you don't get the point -- having sam join MS and all those employees follow him was the threat that got him hired back on and the board reconstituted. Having that space made the thread of this happening very real. It never happened because the board surrendered.
The board knew or should have known that sam had all the chips. Maybe they had no choice but to react as allowing his dishonesty/manipulation would have been equivalent to surrendering power anyway. Or maybe sam would have continued escalating until they had to respond. Who knows.
I've also worked at large firms, with a good 20% of seats being unused. If the CEO himself turned his attention to it, "making room" might be as simple as updating some cells in a spreadsheet depending on what they are working with. Potentially hiring sam Altman also doesn't typically happen on a Saturday.
I am aware, but it's not clear what Microsoft gains from this conspiracy, unless your claim is that Altman crossed them too and just used them for leverage with the board.
Microsoft would be happy with Altman and team in-house or happy with him at the helm of OAI.
What they could not countenance is setting their $1BN investment on fire.
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Create crisis. Consolidate power.
It's exactly what happened at Reddit and then at OpenAI.
Note that the OpenAI board didn't just randomly fire Altman. They fired him because he was being dishonest and subverting their authority. The crisis was precipitated by Sam.
Believe it or not, OpenAI was founded as a non-profit to democratize access to AI, and not as a way to get rich and funnel AI discoveries to a megacorp.
And they begged him to come back because he promised to stop? Or because they had no power to begin with?
Seems like conjecture.
They switched to a for profit model five years ago. Far from being put-upon idealists, the board was perfectly happy to ride the wave.
So Reddit story doesn’t move the needle for you at all?
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