> - Hire an independent investigator to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report.<p>This is very interesting. You wouldn't normally hire an investigator to dig into a corporate shitshow. Firing of Sam Altman was a huge mess, but if there was a serious reason to do that (like, frauding the board), and that reason would be backed by investigation report, it'll suddenly make board actions much more justifiable. And it'll put Microsoft into a tough spot, because they hired Altman back without any considerations whatsoever...
Reading between the lines, what I see is that even the interim CEO is communicating that the board created a massive mess for petty reasons. Hopefully the report will be public.
The board of directors trying to get Altman back after firing him effective immediately, failing, and giving the job to their second choice underscores the level of incompetence and lack of professionalism at OpenAI. They seem to be in a bit over their heads with a company that is supposedly worth 80bln dollars. Not with that board it's worth that much.
Top talent will leave OpenAI soon, it already started on twitter:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/shengjia_zhao/status/1726543423824675154" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/shengjia_zhao/status/1726543423824675154</a>
I mean I really like Emmet. But they have essentially replaced a product person with fairly deep AI knowledge with another product person with much less AI knowledge?<p>Really sounds to me like he was just the only one available on a short notice.<p>They should have picked Elon for extra meme points at least.
A pretty reasonable statement to start an incredibly tough gig.<p>I don't see how he can turn this around, but kudos for trying and communicating openly about the short term plan.
> I was happily avoiding full time employment. I took this job because I believe that OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence. When the board shared the situation and asked me to take the role, I did not make the decision lightly. Ultimately I felt that I had a duty to help if I could.<p>An external CEO that's stepping in not because they want to but because they feel they "need" to doesn't sound like a recipe for success.
Good on him for making a candid statement, but this seems to be more about putting out fires, than assuring companies and partners that OpenAI has a bright future ahead.
> I'm not crazy enough to take this job without board support for commercializing our awesome models.<p>Sure, sure...<p>But some general state of mind around all that AI's is strange. So WE-MUST... The AGI !!1<p>Money, yeah, some, but for did we do the same with eg. cars ? Public hearings, regulations, push AI chips into everybody phones before it is even working or phone companies have their own AI systems ?<p>And just some strange feeling: is OpenAI roleplaing Silicon Valley movie ? Even names are similiar, in places :)
Sigh OpenAI employees probably take the biggest loss. Have to chose between this shitshow or joining Microsoft. Crazy how fast things can change. 1AM twitter post, restructurings by an interim ceo only for it to happen again once they get a permanent one. Crazy how fast things can change
Once again I'm convinced that the concept of non-profit is incompatible with moving software and technology forwards. In any real situation with accountability this group would be disbanded before Friday had been through, insane damage they've caused to OpenAI and the recent deals and depending on how this plays out they may have cost themselves market dominance.<p>How many more times in my life am I going to have to sit and watch a non-profit board destroy a piece of software, stagnate a piece of software or fumble a market dominance position, you'd have think we'd have learnt from Mozilla that it just doesn't seem to work.<p>Vision, talent and accountability to success builds real change in technology, not the sort of at best navel gazing academics and at worst outright leeches who are attracted to non-profit boards.