“Behind the Scenes of Sam Altman’s Showdown at OpenAI: A Fired CEO, Middle-Finger Emojis and the Battle Royale over the Future of Artificial Intelligence”, 2023-11-22 (; backlinks):
…According to people familiar with the board’s thinking, members had grown so untrusting of Sam Altman that they felt it necessary to double check nearly everything he told them.
…This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen insiders at OpenAI and people around the company’s hectic weekend.
…This time around, Altman’s grip on the board slipped after some of the more business-minded board members left earlier this year. The maker of the most advanced AI technology that was rapidly weaving itself into every nook and cranny of the American economy came to be controlled by 4 people who weren’t focused on whether the business was economically successful.
…Murati and Ilya Sutskever led an all-hands meeting at 2 p.m. Employees peppered them with dozens of questions, many of which were some version of: what did Sam do? One employee asked if they would ever find out, to which Sutskever replied, “No.” After that meeting, the executive team regrouped in a conference room. A member of the executive team told Sutskever that the lack of detail was unacceptable and demanded the rest of the board join a video call to explain, according to people familiar with the matter. On the call, the leadership team pressed the board over the course of about 40 minutes for specific examples of Altman’s lack of candor, the people said. The board refused, citing legal reasons, the people said.
…On the call, the leadership team pressed the board over the course of about 40 minutes for specific examples of Altman’s lack of candor, the people said. The board refused, citing legal reasons, the people said. Some executives said they were getting questions from regulators and law-enforcement entities such as the US attorney’s office in Manhattan over the charge of Altman’s alleged lack of candor, the people said. [Who called them in?] The truth was going to come out one way or another, they told the board.
People familiar with the board’s thinking said there wasn’t one incident that led to their decision to eject Altman, but a consistent, slow erosion of trust over time that made them increasingly uneasy. Also complicating matters were Altman’s mounting list of outside AI-related ventures, which raised questions for the board about how OpenAI’s technology or intellectual property could be used.
The board agreed to discuss the matter with their counsel. After a few hours, they returned, still unwilling to provide specifics. They said that Altman wasn’t candid, and often got his way. The board said that Altman had been so deft they couldn’t even give a specific example, according to the people familiar with the executives. The executives requested written examples of the board’s allegations.
…Altman blamed himself for not better managing the board, which he felt was taken over by people overly concerned with safety and influenced by effective altruism.
…Some of those fears centered on Helen Toner, who previously worked at Open Philanthropy… In October, she published an academic paper…Altman confronted her, saying she had harmed the company, according to people familiar with the matter. Toner told the board that she wished she had phrased things better in her writing, explaining that she was writing for an academic audience and didn’t expect a wider public one.
Some OpenAI executives told her that everything relating to their company makes its way into the press. [Of course, Altman could, at any instant, ensure that it did—which would require an emergency board meeting to decide what to do about Toner…]
…Two days before Altman’s ouster, they were discussing these concerns on a Slack channel, which included Sutskever. One senior executive wrote that the company needed to “uplevel” its “independence”—meaning create more distance between itself and the EA movement. [ie. fire Toner from the board. That Altman was discussing how to fire Toner has been indirectly confirmed by Kara Swisher: ” many sources tell me he and others in the company definitely wanted her off the board in the weeks prior.“]
…On Sunday morning, Murati sent a note to staff saying that Altman would be returning to the office… Inside, employees gathered, some openly sobbing…In the lobby, Brockman’s wife, Anna Brockman, who had been married in 2019 at OpenAI’s offices in a civil ceremony officiated by Sutskever, cried and pleaded with Sutskever to reconsider.
Shortly afterward, he did. Overnight Sunday night, OpenAI employees penned a blistering open letter threatening to quit and follow Altman and Brockman to Microsoft unless the board resigned and reinstated them, and installed new independent board members like Taylor and Hurd. By the end of the day, more than 700⁄770 employees had signed it—including Sutskever. “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions”, he wrote on Twitter. “I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.” Altman retweeted it with 3 hearts.