Discussion

• @silvermanbrandon Brandon Silverman on threads

  Just realized that one of the less obvious reasons that Altman's departure is so shocking is that it represents the outcome of a functional board at a big tech company 🫣

• @benedictevans Benedict Evans on threads

  I don't get why a board would call Altman a liar if it disagrees with his strategy.  Even if it felt insufficiently consulted.

• @carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on threads

  The current narrative leaking out of OpenAI is that he was fired by the board for trying to turn it into a profitable big tech instead of the non-profit research that many researchers signed up for.  This is like Google's board firing Larry & Sergey the day after ads showed up in…

• @alexheath Alex Heath on threads

  Like @karaswisher, I've heard that OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who leads its research team, was instrumental in the ousting of Sam Altman, and that this all went down very recently.  More details to come, but for now, what's clear is that OpenAI is entering a decidedly new …

• @mathonan Mat on threads

  This old profile of Ilya Sutskever from the before times of, uh, three weeks ago is absolutely worth a read now if you missed it then.  “Instead of building the next GPT or image maker DALL-E, Sutskever tells me his new priority is to figure out how to stop an artificial superint…

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  More scoopage: sources tell me chief scientist Ilya Sutskever was at the center of this. Increasing tensions with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman over role and influence and he got the board on his side.

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  Sources tell me that the profit direction of the company under Altman and the speed of development, which could be seen as too risky, and the nonprofit side dedicated to more safety and caution were at odds. One person on the Sam side called it a “coup,” while another said it was…

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  The developer day and how the store was introduced was in inflection moment of Altman pushing too far, too fast. My bet: He'll have a new company up by Monday.

• @freddieraynolds @freddieraynolds on x

  Anon Reddit account created today shared this about Sam/@OpenAI situation. Plausible? Posted 5 minutes ago with 0 upvotes. So boring it's almost believable. [image]

• @danprimack Dan Primack on x

  This includes controlling the narrative. The board has botched that part of it too... by moving too slow

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  More: The board members who voted against Altman felt he was manipulative and headstrong and wanted to do what he wanted to do. That sounds like a typical SV CEO to me, but this might not be a typical SV company. They certainly have a lot of explaining to do.

• @blader Siqi Chen on x

  so basically the “move slower” people ousted the “move faster” people who'll move fast to start a newco all the “move faster” people will join to move faster, and all that will be left are the “move slower” people moving slow to move slower together

• @profnoahgian Noah Giansiracusa on x

  Ironic that the leadership of a company aiming to solve alignment is crumbling due to a misalignment...

• @eladgil Elad Gil on x

  Current rumor is this is true It was roughly EA versus AI progress If true, effective altruism is the greatest destroyer of value since we shut down nuclear power in the 1970s....

• @levie Aaron Levie on x

  This would be the wildest destruction of value by a board of all time.

• @minimaxir Max Woolf on x

  Sam Altman will call it ClosedAI just for the anarchy.

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  This seems more plausible, but the tech community is also rife with rumors of all kinds, some really out there. A lot of questionable incoming, for sure.

• @harrymccracken Harry McCracken on x

  I really wonder if major changes are on the way for how OpenAI runs itself and what it does with the technology it's invented.

• @ryxcommar @ryxcommar on x

  I am skeptical of this explanation but if there is any truth here then the profit side is incredibly myopic here? There is an incredible amount of business value compared to the open source alternatives in running the only chatbot that can't be tricked into saying the N word.

• @edzitron Ed Zitron on x

  Maybe this is the crank in me but I refuse to believe Sam Altman - the CEO of the most talked-about tech company in the valley - was ousted because of an internal disagreement with the non-profit side of OpenAI. Just no way. Sorry

• @buccocapital BuccoCapital Guy on x

  If they fired Sam because of some weird safety/AI alignment thing that's so fucking dumb and my point about having a real board still stands

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  Next shoe to drop tonight has to be 1. Sam Altman/Greg Brockman take, followed soon by the announcement of a new company backed by everyone who matters in AI. 2. Lawsuit aimed at board of OpenAI, unless they can show a very smoking gun. [image]

• @basedbeffjezos @basedbeffjezos on x

  Imagine shipping so hard and so well the board gets scared. lmao.

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  @nycsouthpaw It's not a very experienced or high powered board

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  @GaryMarcus @OpenAI It is. Very underexperienced board

• @durvidimel David ImeI on x

  Sounds like there really was an Alignment Problem

• @danprimack Dan Primack on x

  Wondering how many emergency VC partner meetings are being called tonight, to write blank checks for the new AI company that many expect @sama and @gdb to launch.

• @austen @austen on x

  If it was actually a safetyist coup that kicked Sam out: 1. Most great talent will leave 2. OpenAI will rapidly become irrelevant, $80B company will over time go up in smoke 3. Really excited to watch the race to replace it 4. That is just an impossibly stupid decision

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  One source did note that the fault lines were Altman/Brockman duo versus chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and board member Helen Toner, who were aligned.

• @quantian1 @quantian1 on x

  There's roughly a 0% chance a captive board with a blank check from Microsoft turfs out Altman for spending too much money lmao

• @sharongoldman Sharon Goldman on x

  The conflict between the profit (development) vs. the fiduciary duty of nonprofit side (safety/caution) of OpenAI was something the lawyers I spoke to about the nonprofit OpenAI board last weekend pointed to: https://venturebeat.com/...

• @austen @austen on x

  That's it? There's no way, right? They ousted Sam for *checks notes* building too fast??? [image]

• @nycsouthpaw @nycsouthpaw on x

  If we believe this, wouldn't we also have to believe this high-powered board published an arguably defamatory public termination statement... in an environment where everyone is obviously going to sue each other?

• @localghost Aaron Ng on x

  This just sucks. Imagine the most transformative company of the generation being destroyed by a board with no equity, half of which seemingly has nothing to do with AI, one of which owns a competitor.

• @lmatsakis Louise Matsakis on x

  If Altman was fired over AI safety concerns, that's way crazier in a lot of ways than a sex or financial scandal. It shows how deeply committed effective altruists are to an idea that is essentially borrowed from science fiction — that AGI could kill all of humanity

• @kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x

  OpenAI was a non-profit, that became a for-profit, that went all in on growth, funding, and envelope-pushing, whose corporate governance inevitably reeled it in. One leading theory so far.

• @8teapi @8teapi on x

  All consistent now. Ilya blindsided by targets baked into MSFT deal dictating how fast they needed to rollout in order to get to next fundraise.

• @kimmaicutler Kim-Mai Cutler on x

  If it was purely a AI safety philosophical disagreement and no other malfeasance like fraud, I don't understand what this does other than delay what they're concerned about by 6 months to a year.

• @lmatsakis Louise Matsakis on x

  The Information reports that Ilya told OpenAI employees that “this was the board doing its duty to the mission of the nonprofit, which is to make sure that OpenAI builds AGI that benefits all of humanity.” It seems like it was a disagreement about safety https://www.theinformatio…

• @garymarcus Gary Marcus on x

  @karaswisher @OpenAI where does “[Altman] wasn't consistently candid in his communications” fit in, @karaswisher ? That's a strong statement for a board to make, actionable for an enormous amount of money if false.

• @parkerortolani Parker Ortolani on x

  Feels increasingly clear to me that removing Sam will have been a massive miscalculation.

• @danprimack Dan Primack on x

  I take no position yet on who's right here but: Even if you think it was the right move, it was almost definitely a coup.

• r/ChatGPT r on reddit

  Kara Swisher: “Scoop: There are about to be a lot more major departures of top folks at @OpenAI tonight and I assume Altman will make a statement tonight. …

• @alexkantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on threads

  Musk was crucial in recruiting Sutskever with promises of AI safety

• @business @business on x

  OpenAI's firing of Sam Altman followed wide-ranging disagreements between the CEO and his board — in particular Ilya Sutskever, the company's chief scientist https://www.bloomberg.com/...

• @shiringhaffary Shirin Ghaffary on x

  More details about the tension leading up this moment: [image]

• @reedalbergotti Reed Albergotti on x

  New: Sam Altman was raising a new venture fund right before he was fired. It was focused on hard tech. Unclear whether this had anything to do with his ouster https://www.semafor.com/...

• @parismarx Paris Marx on x

  “Founders and operators have questioned [Altman's] network of investments and whether there were financial connections that weren't publicly known.” “Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, was blindsided by Altman's firing.” https://www.semafor.com/...