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Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI (www.theverge.com)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Sam Altman has been fired as CEO of OpenAI, the company announced on Friday.

“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company said in its blog post.

EDITED TO ADD direct link to OpenAI board announcement:
https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition

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[–] [email protected] 194 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I've seen a number of misinformed comments here complaining about a profit oriented board.

It's worth keeping in mind that this board was the original non-profit board, that none of the members have equity, and literally part of the announcement is the board saying that they want to be more aligned as a company with the original charter of helping bring about AI for everyone.

There may be an argument around Altman's oust being related to his being too closed source and profit oriented, but the idea that the reasoning was the other way around is pretty ludicrous.

Again - this isn't an investor board of people who put money into the company and have equity they are trying to protect.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

So what is their board here if they aren't investors?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's a non-profit.

OpenAI is a non-profit with a board which owns the LLC which is what was invested into and makes money.

This was not the LLC board, but the non-profit board in charge of the whole thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for explaining! I knew about this arrangement but didn't know the two boards work this way.

So, non-profit board members are being simply hired as employees and they don't have to have any connection with the company as long as they meet the bylaw criteria.

Altman himself praised this non profit overseer structure before. I wonder what does he think of it now 🫣

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

A point of clarification, board members aren't usually considered employees by virtue of their presence on the board. They are apart from the organization. They often have a dual role as some kind of executive in the company, though.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

I don't know why you're being downvoted, this is a good question that not everyone knows the answer to. (It's been answered above me, but just so we're clear, any large organization can have a board of directors, whether they invest money or not. A board of directors isn't necessarily "the people who have money", it's the people who set the direction.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I thought it also had to do with him allegedly abusing his sister for decades?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago

Not according to any of the information currently coming out.

And it would be weird for the President to resign as well if the CEO was ousted for sexual abuse.