OpenAI memo: Sam Altman's firing wasn't due to “malfeasance” or related to financial, business, safety, or security practices but a “breakdown in communication”

Team - after yesterday's announcement, which took us all by surprise, we have had multiple conversations …

Axios 2023-11-19

Discussion

@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on threads
The OpenAI board this morning
@kalihays1 Kali Hays on threads
That is one hell of a “breakdown in communication” between Altman and the board he put in place
@crumbler Casey Newton on threads
The board should just offer a new explanation for why it fired Sam every few hours until we achieve AGI
@kevinroose Kevin Roose on threads
NEW: OpenAI employees were told Saturday morning that the board's decision to fire Sam Altman “was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety or security/privacy practices. This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the …
@marypcbuk.bsky.social Mary Branscombe on bluesky
Using the company name to launch your own things without telling the board is a great communication failure [embedded post]
@_ali_taylor Ali on x
holy shit. that's all?? “We can say definitively that the board's decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices. This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board.”
@jxmnop Jack Morris on x
now seems as good a time as ever to remind people that the biggest breakthroughs at OpenAI came from a previously unknown researcher with a bachelors degree from olin college of engineering [image]
@sporadicalia @sporadicalia on x
unfortunately it was indeed a safetyist coup from within. what an absolute travesty. [image]
@basedbeffjezos @basedbeffjezos on x
Safety coup confirmed. Ilya started the deep learning revolution and felt obliged to try to kill it before it hatches AGI. What a character arc. The movies will be insane.
@rabois Keith Rabois on x
@danprimack looks like yesterday's announcement constituted defamation and they already confirmed it.
@jakewilkns Jake Wilkins on x
Sam Altman's firing as OpenAI CEO was not the result of “malfeasance” but rather a “breakdown in communications between Sam Altman and the board,” per an internal memo seen by @inafried. https://www.axios.com/...
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
OpenAI memo: Altman's firing not “malfeasance” but “breakdown in communications” https://www.axios.com/...
r/OpenAI r on reddit
No “malfeasance” behind Sam Altman's firing, OpenAI memo says
@anissagardizy8 Anissa Gardizy on x
OpenAI Interim CEO Mira Murati told staff in a companywide meeting that its relationship w/ Microsoft—its biggest outside source of capital and computing power—was stable following the sudden firing of CEO Sam Altman. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... @erinkwoo @amir
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Ok. But what else could Mira or Microsoft say at this moment without setting off a panic for both orgs and their customers? What happens on week 2 is much bigger than on day 1.
@aaronpholmes Aaron Holmes on x
NEW: In an all-hands just now, OpenAI's interim CEO assured staff its relationship w/ MSFT is stable. Meanwhile, MSFT leaders were blindsided by Sam Altman's ouster today. He met with MSFT as recently as yesterday. https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on threads
One thing I love about the OpenAI debacle is that the it's scientists versus tech bros where the tech bros want to create a trillion dollar enterprise AI company while the scientists want to create an AI that can replace humans in every job but don't worry it will be “programmed …
@kevinroose Kevin Roose on threads
I asked Sam Altman about the idea of accelerationism (speeding up AI progress) vs. doomerism (slowing it down) on Wednesday, just two days before OpenAI's board fired him. His response: https://www.nytimes.com/...
@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.
@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 …
@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…
@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…
@tomgara Tom Gara on threads
It's amazing that so much money got poured into this company and nobody bothered to fix this completely insane governance structure
@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…
@ylecun Yann LeCun on x
@vkhosla Vinod, Chinese companies are very much on top of it already. Many have already developed their own home-grown LLMs from scratch. They're not far behind and they have some original ideas that could actually be useful to the rest of the world. They don't want to “steal” We…
@rabois Keith Rabois on x
At least that EA nonsense is DOA.
@sriramk Sriram Krishnan on x
Effective altruism might be the villain a lot of us here should be focused on.
@thestalwart Joe Weisenthal on x
If it's true that they torched an $80 billion company cause they thought they were too close to building God, then that's orders of magnitude the most punk rock thing I've ever heard of.
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
If this was about AI safety, what in the world did OpenAI uncover that led to such an escalation?
@scottros Scott Rosenberg on x
OpenAI's drama looks like the result of a culture clash on the nonprofit board over its mission. Nonprofit boards aren't like other boards! They're responsible for a mission, not for maximizing shareholder value. My analysis at @axios https://www.axios.com/...
@bryce Bryce Roberts on x
Dysfunctional/toxic boards will be as big a story in 2024 as the startup extinctions of 2023. So much bad behavior in the market right now. There's a reason the generational companies of the last decade had total board control.
@basedbeffjezos @basedbeffjezos on x
This fucking guy. If this was a Safetyist coup, Sam will forever be an e/acc martyr and OAI is basically done. [image]
@levie Aaron Levie on x
We need AI providers to either be open source, or fully for-profit where the incentives are aligned to serve customers. Otherwise, too much risk with ambiguously motivated boards with too much control. There's no third way
@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
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.
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
@nycsouthpaw It's not a very experienced or high powered board
@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
@basedbeffjezos @basedbeffjezos on x
Imagine shipping so hard and so well the board gets scared. lmao.
@austen @austen on x
That's it? There's no way, right? They ousted Sam for *checks notes* building too fast??? [image]
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
More on @OpenAI: Several sources told me Board told Sam Altman 30 mins in advance, Greg Brockman 5 mins in advance about the move. Brockman is chair of the board, so not sure how that worked. Microsoft also was told just before, and employees not told in advance. 🤡 🚗
@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
@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.
@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
@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.
@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....
@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]
@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.
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
Btw I talked to major SV figures who were close to OpenAI and none had any idea this was coming. This is one wacky board. [image]
@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
@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.
@minimaxir Max Woolf on x
Sam Altman will call it ClosedAI just for the anarchy.
@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
@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…
@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.
@parkerortolani Parker Ortolani on x
Feels increasingly clear to me that removing Sam will have been a massive miscalculation.
@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/...
@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.
@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.
@levie Aaron Levie on x
This would be the wildest destruction of value by a board of all time.
@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.
@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
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
@GaryMarcus @OpenAI It is. Very underexperienced board
@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.
@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.
@durvidimel David ImeI on x
Sounds like there really was an Alignment Problem
@profnoahgian Noah Giansiracusa on x
Ironic that the leadership of a company aiming to solve alignment is crumbling due to a misalignment...
@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.
r/neoliberal r on reddit
Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI
r/LocalLLaMA r on reddit
Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI (Microsoft CEO Nadella “furious”; OpenAI President and three senior researchers resign)
r/StockMarket r on reddit
Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI
r/technology r on reddit
Before OpenAI Ousted Altman, Employees Disagreed Over AI ‘Safety’
@jw Josh Williams on threads
This article about OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever from MIT Tech contains remarkable anecdotes that shed light on why he may have played his hand the way he did. It's striking how much faith we place in people to save us from machines when they spend ZERO time with other p…
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on threads
We don't even know yet which board members voted to fire Sam Altman. Messy but thankfully they're not in charge of developing anything too big or risky
@juditpetho Judit Petho on threads
That's cute but then they clearly don't understand what the words in their announcement insinuated. This board is frighteningly amateurish for such an important company, for profit or not
@joenandez Joe Fernandez on threads
Ah thanks board for clarifying that a simple breakdown in communication - one of the literal easiest problems to fix between humans - was the reason you decided to destroy billions of dollars of business value and lose the trust of millions of customers and developers.
@yonetteajoseph Yonette Joseph on threads
Here's what @kevinroose knows about Sam Altman's: 1. The ouster was only possible because of OpenAI's unusual corporate governance structure. 2. Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's chief scientist and a board member, dismissed employees' suggestions that pushing Altman out amounted to a “…
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on threads
So the summary of the OpenAI drama is that the company's mission is to build an AI that can take all the jobs and “loves humanity” but their chief scientist, Ilya, was worried that Sam Altman was pushing too fast on the “take all the jobs” bit while they haven't figured out the “…
@gdb Greg Brockman on x
Greg Brockman describes OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever's role in Sam Altman's firing, Brockman's removal from OpenAI's board, and Mira Murati's foreknowledge
r/singularity r on reddit
Altman clashed with members of his board, especially Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder and the company's chief scientist, over how quickly to develop what's known as generative AI. …

Chronicles

OpenAI memo: Sam Altman's firing wasn't due to “malfeasance” or related to financial, business, safety, or security practices but a “breakdown in communication”

Related Coverage

Discussion