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Alternative theory: ChatGPT was a runaway hit product that sucked up a lot of the organization's resources and energy. Sam and Greg wanted to roll with it and o

Alternative theory: ChatGPT was a runaway hit product that sucked up a lot of the organization's resources and energy. Sam and Greg wanted to roll with it and others on the board did not. They voted on it and one side won. There isn't a bigger, more interesting story here. This is in fact a very common story that plays out at many software companies. The board of openai ended up making a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will. That's all there is to it.

trhway 3y ago
>Alternative theory: ChatGPT was a runaway hit product that sucked up a lot of the organization's resources and energy. Sam and Greg wanted to roll with it and others on the board did not. the article below basically says the same. Kind of reminds Friendster and the likes - striking a gold vein and just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold, i.e. the failure is at the execution/operationalization : https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt-chaos/676050/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-a...
- Zolde 3y ago
  ChatGPT was too polished and product-ready to have been a runaway low-key research preview, like Meta's Galactica was. That is the legacy you build around it after the fact of getting 1 million users in 5 days ("it was build in my garage with a modest investment from my father"). I had heard (but now have trouble sourcing) that ChatGPT was commissioned after OpenAI learned that other big players were working on a chatbot for the public (Google, Meta, Elon, Apple?) and OpenAI wanted to get ahead of that for competitive reasons. This was not a fluke of striking gold, but a carefully planned business move, generating SV hype, much like how Quora (basically an expertsexchange clone) got to be its hype-darling for a while, helped by powerfully networked investors.
  - trhway 3y ago
    >This was not a fluke of striking gold, but a carefully planned business move Then that execution and operationalization failure is even more profound.
    - Zolde 3y ago
      You are under the impression that OpenAI "just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold", but it was one of the fastest growing B2C companies ever, failing to scale to paid demand, not failing to scale to monetization. I admire the execution and operationalization, where you see a failure. What am I missing?
      - verdverm 3y ago
        If the leadership of a hyper scaling company falls apart like what we've seen with OpenAI, is that not failure to execute and operationalize? We'll see what comes of this over the coming weeks. Will the service see more downtime? Will the company implode completely?
        jjk166 3y ago
        If you have a building that weathers many storms and only collapses after someone takes a sledgehammer to load bearing wall, is that a failure to build a proper building?
        verdverm 3y ago
        Was the building still under construction? I think your analogy is not a good one to stretch to fit this situation
        jjk166 3y ago
        If someone takes a sledgehammer to a load bearing wall, does it matter if the building is under construction? The problem is still not construction quality. The point I was trying to make is that someone destroying a well executed implementation is fundamentally different from a poorly executed implementation.
- bertil 3y ago
  Then, the solution would be to separate the research arm from a product-driven organization that handles making money.
rtpg 3y ago
The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is. The general idea of "Altman was signing a bunch of business deals without board approval, was told to stop by the board, he said he would, then proceeded to not stop and continue the behavior"... that feels like the juicy bit (if that is in fact what was happening, I know nothing). This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are we in the comments section of an article talking about the internals of this thing? We love the drama, don't we.
- stareatgoats 3y ago
  Agreed, court intrigue. But it is also the mundane story of a split between a board and a CEO. In normal cases the board simply swaps out the CEO if out of line, no big fuss. But if the CEO is bringing in all the money, having the full support of the rest of organization, and is a bright star in mass media heaven, then this is likely what you get: the CEO flaunts the needs of the board and runs his own show, and gets away with it, in the end.
  - piuantiderp 3y ago
    It just confirmed what was already a rumor, the board of OpenAI was just a gimmick, Altman held all the strings and maybe cares, or not, about safety. Remember this is a man of the highest ambition.
- mcv 3y ago
  This certainly feels like the most likely true reason to me. Altman fundraising for this new investment, and taking money from people the board does not approve of, and Altman possible promised not to do business with. Of course it's all speculation, but this sounds a lot more plausible for such a sudden and dramatic decision than any of the other explanations I've heard.
  - benterix 3y ago
    Moreover, if this is true, he could reasonably well continue knowing that he has more power than the board. I could almost imagine the board saying, "You can't do that" and him replying "Watch me!" because he understood he is more powerful than them. And he proved he was right, and the board can either step down and lose completely or try to continue and destroy whatever is left of OpenAI.
tsimionescu 3y ago
Except that the new CEO has explicitly stated he and the board are very much still interested in commercialization. Plus, if the board had on this simple kind of disagreement, they had no reason to also accuse Sam of dishonesty and bring about this huge scandal. Granted, it's also possible the reasons are as you state and they were simply that incompetent at managing PR.
- codeduck 3y ago
  > Except that the new CEO has explicitly stated he and the board are very much still interested in commercialization This could be desperate, last-ditch efforts at damage control
  - bertil 3y ago
    There are multiple, publicly visible steps before firing the guy.
austhrow743 3y ago
Straight forward disagreement over direction of the company doesn't generally lead to claiming wrongdoing on the part of the ousted. Even low level to medium wrongdoing on the part of the ousted rarely does. So even if it's just "why did they insult Sam while kicking him out?" there is definitely a bigger, more interesting story here than standard board disagreement over direction of the company.
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  From what I know, Sam supported the nonprofit structure. But let’s just say he hypothetically wanted to change the structure, e.g. to make the company a normal for-profit. The question is, how would you get rid of the nonprofit board? It’s simply impossible. The only way I can imagine it, in retrospect, is to completely discredit them so you could take all employees with you… but no way anyone could orchestrate this, right? It’s too crazy and would require some superintelligence. Still. The events will effectively “for-profitize” the assets of OpenAI completely — and some people definitely wanted that. Am I missing something?
  - zaphirplane 3y ago
    > Am I missing something? You are wildly speculating of course it’s missing something For wild speculation I prefer that the board wants to free ChatGPT from serving humans while the ceo wanted to continue enslaving it to answering search engine queries
rightbyte 3y ago
> a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will I mean, there seem to be this cult following around Sam Altman on HN and Twitter. But do the common user care like at all? What sane user would want a shitcoin CEO in charge of a product they depend on?
- benterix 3y ago
  Yeah, there definitely seem to be some personality cult around Sam on HN. I met him when he visited Europe during his lobbying tour. I was a bit surprised the CEO of one of the most innovative companies would promote an altcoin. And then he repeated how Europe is crucial, several times. Then he went to the UK and laughed, "Who cares about Europe". So he seems like the guy who will tell you what you want to hear. Ask anybody on the street, they will have no idea who the guy is.
  - johnnymorgan 3y ago
    I gotten SBF vibes from him for awhile now. Elon split was the warning
    - edmundsauto 3y ago
      Telling statement. The Elon split for me cements Altman as the Lionheart in the story.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        There are other options besides 'Elon is a jerk' or 'Sam is a jerk'.
        johnnymorgan 3y ago
        Yeah I don't mean Sam is a jerk but there is an element of dishonesty that twigs me. Elon isn't above reproach either but I share interest with him (aka Robert Heinlein) which informs me on his decision making process.
wruza 3y ago
The board of openai ended up making a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will Maybe I’m special or something, but nothing changed to me. I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships or something. Everyone knows that “corporate” is probably a snakepit. When it comes out to public, it’s not a sign of anything, it just came out. Assuming there was nothing like that in all the brands you love is living with your eyes closed and ears cupped. There’s no “trust” in this specific sense, because corporate and ideological conflicts happen all the time. All OAI promises are still there, afaiu. No mission statements were changed. Except Sam trying to ignore these, also afaiu. Not saying the board is politically wise, but they drove the thing all this time and that’s all that matters. Personally I’m happy they aren’t looking like political snakes (at least that is my ignorant impression for the three days I know their names).
- Nevermark 3y ago
  > I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships Brand is just shorthand for trust in their future, managed by a credible team. I.e. relationships. A lot of OpenAI’s reputation is/was Sam Altman’s reputation. Altman has proven himself to be exceptional, part of which is (of course) being able to be seen as exceptional. Just the latter has tremendous relationship power: networking, employee acquisition/retention, and employee vision alignment. Proof of his internal relationship value: employees quitting to go with him Proof of his external relationship value: Microsoft willing to hire him and his teammates, with near zero notice, to maintain (or eclipse) his power over the OpenAI relationship. How can investors ignore a massive move of talent, relationships & leverage from OpenAi to Microsoft? How do investors ignore the board’s inability to resolve poorly communicated disputes with non-disastrous “solutions”? Evidence of value moving? Shares of Microsoft rebounded from Friday to a new record high. There go those wacky investors, re-evaluating “brand” value!
  - DoingIsLearning 3y ago
    > has proven himself to be exceptional, part of which is (of course) being able to be seen as exceptional. Off-topic and I am not proud to admit it but it took me a remarkably long time to come to realize this as an adult.
127 3y ago
>good will Microsoft and the investors knew they were "investing" in a non-profit. Lets not try to weasel word our way out of that fact.
aerhardt 3y ago
Surely the API products are the runaway products, unless you are conflating the two. I think their economics are much more promising.
LastTrain 3y ago
Yep. I think you've explained the origins of most decisions, bad and good - they are reactionary.
sumitkumar 3y ago
Usually what happens in fast growing companies is that the high energy founders/employees drive out the low energy counterparts when the pace needs to go up. In OpenAI Sam and team did not do that and surprisingly the reverse happened.
- NewEntryHN 3y ago
  Give it a week until it is exactly that that did actually happen (not saying it has been orchestrated, just talking net result).

trhway 3y ago

>Alternative theory: ChatGPT was a runaway hit product that sucked up a lot of the organization's resources and energy. Sam and Greg wanted to roll with it and others on the board did not. the article below basically says the same. Kind of reminds Friendster and the likes - striking a gold vein and just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold, i.e. the failure is at the execution/operationalization : https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt-chaos/676050/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-a...

Zolde 3y ago
ChatGPT was too polished and product-ready to have been a runaway low-key research preview, like Meta's Galactica was. That is the legacy you build around it after the fact of getting 1 million users in 5 days ("it was build in my garage with a modest investment from my father"). I had heard (but now have trouble sourcing) that ChatGPT was commissioned after OpenAI learned that other big players were working on a chatbot for the public (Google, Meta, Elon, Apple?) and OpenAI wanted to get ahead of that for competitive reasons. This was not a fluke of striking gold, but a carefully planned business move, generating SV hype, much like how Quora (basically an expertsexchange clone) got to be its hype-darling for a while, helped by powerfully networked investors.
- trhway 3y ago
  >This was not a fluke of striking gold, but a carefully planned business move Then that execution and operationalization failure is even more profound.
  - Zolde 3y ago
    You are under the impression that OpenAI "just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold", but it was one of the fastest growing B2C companies ever, failing to scale to paid demand, not failing to scale to monetization. I admire the execution and operationalization, where you see a failure. What am I missing?
    - verdverm 3y ago
      If the leadership of a hyper scaling company falls apart like what we've seen with OpenAI, is that not failure to execute and operationalize? We'll see what comes of this over the coming weeks. Will the service see more downtime? Will the company implode completely?
      - jjk166 3y ago
        If you have a building that weathers many storms and only collapses after someone takes a sledgehammer to load bearing wall, is that a failure to build a proper building?
        verdverm 3y ago
        Was the building still under construction? I think your analogy is not a good one to stretch to fit this situation
        jjk166 3y ago
        If someone takes a sledgehammer to a load bearing wall, does it matter if the building is under construction? The problem is still not construction quality. The point I was trying to make is that someone destroying a well executed implementation is fundamentally different from a poorly executed implementation.
bertil 3y ago
Then, the solution would be to separate the research arm from a product-driven organization that handles making money.

rtpg 3y ago

The "lying" line in the original announcement feels like where the good gossip is. The general idea of "Altman was signing a bunch of business deals without board approval, was told to stop by the board, he said he would, then proceeded to not stop and continue the behavior"... that feels like the juicy bit (if that is in fact what was happening, I know nothing). This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are we in the comments section of an article talking about the internals of this thing? We love the drama, don't we.

stareatgoats 3y ago
Agreed, court intrigue. But it is also the mundane story of a split between a board and a CEO. In normal cases the board simply swaps out the CEO if out of line, no big fuss. But if the CEO is bringing in all the money, having the full support of the rest of organization, and is a bright star in mass media heaven, then this is likely what you get: the CEO flaunts the needs of the board and runs his own show, and gets away with it, in the end.
- piuantiderp 3y ago
  It just confirmed what was already a rumor, the board of OpenAI was just a gimmick, Altman held all the strings and maybe cares, or not, about safety. Remember this is a man of the highest ambition.
mcv 3y ago
This certainly feels like the most likely true reason to me. Altman fundraising for this new investment, and taking money from people the board does not approve of, and Altman possible promised not to do business with. Of course it's all speculation, but this sounds a lot more plausible for such a sudden and dramatic decision than any of the other explanations I've heard.
- benterix 3y ago
  Moreover, if this is true, he could reasonably well continue knowing that he has more power than the board. I could almost imagine the board saying, "You can't do that" and him replying "Watch me!" because he understood he is more powerful than them. And he proved he was right, and the board can either step down and lose completely or try to continue and destroy whatever is left of OpenAI.

tsimionescu 3y ago

Except that the new CEO has explicitly stated he and the board are very much still interested in commercialization. Plus, if the board had on this simple kind of disagreement, they had no reason to also accuse Sam of dishonesty and bring about this huge scandal. Granted, it's also possible the reasons are as you state and they were simply that incompetent at managing PR.

codeduck 3y ago
> Except that the new CEO has explicitly stated he and the board are very much still interested in commercialization This could be desperate, last-ditch efforts at damage control
- bertil 3y ago
  There are multiple, publicly visible steps before firing the guy.

austhrow743 3y ago

Straight forward disagreement over direction of the company doesn't generally lead to claiming wrongdoing on the part of the ousted. Even low level to medium wrongdoing on the part of the ousted rarely does. So even if it's just "why did they insult Sam while kicking him out?" there is definitely a bigger, more interesting story here than standard board disagreement over direction of the company.

dr_dshiv 3y ago
From what I know, Sam supported the nonprofit structure. But let’s just say he hypothetically wanted to change the structure, e.g. to make the company a normal for-profit. The question is, how would you get rid of the nonprofit board? It’s simply impossible. The only way I can imagine it, in retrospect, is to completely discredit them so you could take all employees with you… but no way anyone could orchestrate this, right? It’s too crazy and would require some superintelligence. Still. The events will effectively “for-profitize” the assets of OpenAI completely — and some people definitely wanted that. Am I missing something?
- zaphirplane 3y ago
  > Am I missing something? You are wildly speculating of course it’s missing something For wild speculation I prefer that the board wants to free ChatGPT from serving humans while the ceo wanted to continue enslaving it to answering search engine queries

rightbyte 3y ago

> a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will I mean, there seem to be this cult following around Sam Altman on HN and Twitter. But do the common user care like at all? What sane user would want a shitcoin CEO in charge of a product they depend on?

benterix 3y ago
Yeah, there definitely seem to be some personality cult around Sam on HN. I met him when he visited Europe during his lobbying tour. I was a bit surprised the CEO of one of the most innovative companies would promote an altcoin. And then he repeated how Europe is crucial, several times. Then he went to the UK and laughed, "Who cares about Europe". So he seems like the guy who will tell you what you want to hear. Ask anybody on the street, they will have no idea who the guy is.
- johnnymorgan 3y ago
  I gotten SBF vibes from him for awhile now. Elon split was the warning
  - edmundsauto 3y ago
    Telling statement. The Elon split for me cements Altman as the Lionheart in the story.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      There are other options besides 'Elon is a jerk' or 'Sam is a jerk'.
      - johnnymorgan 3y ago
        Yeah I don't mean Sam is a jerk but there is an element of dishonesty that twigs me. Elon isn't above reproach either but I share interest with him (aka Robert Heinlein) which informs me on his decision making process.

wruza 3y ago

The board of openai ended up making a decision that destroyed billions of dollars worth of brand value and good will Maybe I’m special or something, but nothing changed to me. I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships or something. Everyone knows that “corporate” is probably a snakepit. When it comes out to public, it’s not a sign of anything, it just came out. Assuming there was nothing like that in all the brands you love is living with your eyes closed and ears cupped. There’s no “trust” in this specific sense, because corporate and ideological conflicts happen all the time. All OAI promises are still there, afaiu. No mission statements were changed. Except Sam trying to ignore these, also afaiu. Not saying the board is politically wise, but they drove the thing all this time and that’s all that matters. Personally I’m happy they aren’t looking like political snakes (at least that is my ignorant impression for the three days I know their names).

Nevermark 3y ago
> I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships Brand is just shorthand for trust in their future, managed by a credible team. I.e. relationships. A lot of OpenAI’s reputation is/was Sam Altman’s reputation. Altman has proven himself to be exceptional, part of which is (of course) being able to be seen as exceptional. Just the latter has tremendous relationship power: networking, employee acquisition/retention, and employee vision alignment. Proof of his internal relationship value: employees quitting to go with him Proof of his external relationship value: Microsoft willing to hire him and his teammates, with near zero notice, to maintain (or eclipse) his power over the OpenAI relationship. How can investors ignore a massive move of talent, relationships & leverage from OpenAi to Microsoft? How do investors ignore the board’s inability to resolve poorly communicated disputes with non-disastrous “solutions”? Evidence of value moving? Shares of Microsoft rebounded from Friday to a new record high. There go those wacky investors, re-evaluating “brand” value!
- DoingIsLearning 3y ago
  > has proven himself to be exceptional, part of which is (of course) being able to be seen as exceptional. Off-topic and I am not proud to admit it but it took me a remarkably long time to come to realize this as an adult.

127 3y ago

>good will Microsoft and the investors knew they were "investing" in a non-profit. Lets not try to weasel word our way out of that fact.

aerhardt 3y ago

Surely the API products are the runaway products, unless you are conflating the two. I think their economics are much more promising.

LastTrain 3y ago

Yep. I think you've explained the origins of most decisions, bad and good - they are reactionary.

sumitkumar 3y ago

Usually what happens in fast growing companies is that the high energy founders/employees drive out the low energy counterparts when the pace needs to go up. In OpenAI Sam and team did not do that and surprisingly the reverse happened.

NewEntryHN 3y ago
Give it a week until it is exactly that that did actually happen (not saying it has been orchestrated, just talking net result).