“Warning from OpenAI Leaders Helped Trigger Sam Altman’s Ouster: The Senior Employees Described Altman As Psychologically Abusive, Creating Delays at the Artificial-Intelligence Start-Up—Complaints That Were a Major Factor in the Board’s Abrupt Decision to Fire the CEO”, 2023-12-08 (; backlinks):
This fall, a small number of senior leaders approached the board of OpenAI with concerns about chief executive Sam Altman. Altman—a revered mentor, prodigious start-up investor and avatar of the AI revolution—had been psychologically abusive, the employees said, creating pockets of chaos and delays at the artificial-intelligence start-up, according to two people familiar with the board’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. The company leaders, a group that included key figures and people who manage large teams, mentioned Altman’s allegedly pitting employees against each other in unhealthy ways, the people said. [The executives approaching the board were previously published in Time, and the chaos hinted at in The Atlantic but this appears to add some more detail.]
…these complaints echoed their [the board’s] interactions with Altman over the years, and they had already been debating the board’s ability to hold the CEO accountable. Several board members thought Altman had lied to them, for example, as part of a campaign to remove board member Helen Toner after she published a paper criticizing OpenAI, the people said.
The new complaints triggered a review of Altman’s conduct during which the board weighed the devotion Altman had cultivated among factions of the company against the risk that OpenAI could lose key leaders who found interacting with him highly toxic. They also considered reports from several employees who said they feared retaliation from Altman: One told the board that Altman was hostile after the employee shared critical feedback with the CEO and that he undermined the employee on that person’s team, the people said.
The complaints about Altman’s alleged behavior, which have not previously been reported, were a major factor in the board’s abrupt decision to fire Altman on Nov. 17. Initially cast as a clash over the safe development of artificial intelligence, Altman’s firing was at least partially motivated by the sense that his behavior would make it impossible for the board to oversee the CEO.
Altman was reinstated as CEO 5 days later, after employees released a letter signed by a large percentage of OpenAI’s 800-person staff, including most senior managers, and threatening mass resignations. Now back at the helm of OpenAI, Altman may find that the company is less united than the waves of heart emojis that greeted his return on social media might suggest. Some employees said Altman’s camp began undermining the board’s decision shortly after he was removed as CEO, the people said. Within hours, messages dismissed the board as illegitimate and decried Altman’s firing as a coup by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, according to the people and a third person with knowledge of the board’s proceedings, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive company matters.
On social media, in news reports and on the anonymous app Blind, which requires members to sign up with a work email address to post, people identified as current OpenAI employees also described facing intense peer pressure to sign the mass-resignation letter.
Some OpenAI employees have rejected the idea that there was any coercion to sign the letter. “Half the company had signed between the hours of 2 and 3am”, a member of OpenAI’s technical staff, who tweets under the pseudonym @roon, posted on Twitter. “That’s not something that can be accomplished by peer pressure.”
Joanne Jang, who works in products at OpenAI, tweeted that no influence had been at play, “The google doc broke so people texted each other at 2–2:30 am begging people with write access to type their name.”…But the lack of concrete details around the board’s motivations allowed room for speculation and spin to take hold. Some talk focused on Sutskever…The pressure on Sutskever to reverse his vote was particularly intense…Altman seemed to approve, quoting Sutskever’s message on Twitter along with a trio of red heart emojis.
…Members of the board expected employees to be upset about Altman’s firing, but they were taken aback when OpenAI’s management team appeared united in their support for bringing him back, said the 3 people.