On: Former GitHub CEO Friedman and Scale AI CEO Wang D...

[divbzero]

I think they planned for Mira Murati to act as interim CEO, but were surprised when she wanted to rehire Sam Altman.

[gjsman-1000 → divbzero]

I think the board was surprised when nobody bought their claim of Sam’s vague wrongdoing.

Actually, I think every plot twist we’ve seen has been a surprise for them as they have consistently acted without 5 minutes of foresight.

And not just with the drama. For example, according to Stratechery, the clause in the contract saying Microsoft couldn’t use GPT-4 as a foundation for their own models was recently removed in a contract revision. If you don’t like your CEO, and Microsoft likes your CEO, and Microsoft has the rights to your models and code, it doesn’t take much to add up 2 + 2 + 2 = 6.

[willvarfar → gjsman-1000]

Hmm, that contract revision _would_ have been grounds for dismissing Sam, if only the board had known...?

The current story is that the board scrambled to find unconvincing grounds when explaining themselves to employees instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38356534

[eastbound → willvarfar]

Well the board could have gone with “We fear a hostile takeover by Microsoft” if they really were afraid that Sam was doing that.

[konschubert → gjsman-1000]

> Actually, I think every plot twist we’ve seen has been a surprise for them as they have consistently acted without 5 minutes of foresight.

Which is ironic considering how much they claim to be focused on long term risks :)

[user_named → gjsman-1000]

I guess they weren't involved in the day to day enough to know that about the contract

[siva7 → user_named]

That’s also not the job of a board

[ubercore → siva7]

In this case, with these stakes, I think it's in the board's purview to understand the implications of firing your CEO with no immediate replacement plan, and the current state of possibly the most important contract your company has would be relevant.

[cyanydeez → gjsman-1000]

eh, I'm pretty sure there was wrong doing the difference is entirely whether you're on the profit side or the nonprofit side.

[guappa → divbzero]

I like how she has a wikipedia page that is 1 week old.