What the general public thinks is irrelevant here. The deciding factor was the staff mutiny, without which the organization is an empty shell. And the staff sided with those who aim for rapid real world impact, with directly affects their career and stock options etc.
It's also naive to think it was a struggle for principles. The rapid commercialization vs. principles is what the actors claim to rally their respective troops, in reality it was probably a naked power grab, taking advantage of the weak and confuse org structure. Quite an ill prepared move, the "correct" way to oust Altman was to hamstring him in the board and enforce a more and more ceremonial role until he would have quit by himself.
The staff never mutinied. They threatened to mutiny. That's a big difference!
Yesterday, I compared these rebels to Shockley's "traitorous eight" [1]. But the traitorous eight actually rebelled. These folk put their name on a piece of paper, options and profit participation units safely held in the other hand.
People have families, mortgages, debt, etc. Sure, these people are probably well compensated, but it is ludicrous to state that everyone has the stability that they can leave their job at a moment's notice because the boss is gone.
They didn't actually leave, they just signed the pledge threatening to. Furthermore, they mostly signed after the details of the Microsoft offer were revealed.
I think you are downplaying the risk they took significantly, this could have easily gone the other way.
Stock options usually have a limited time window to exercise, depending on their strike price they could have been faced with raising a few hundred thousand in 30 days, to put into a company that has an uncertain future, or risk losing everything. The contracts are likely full of holes not in favor of the employees, and for participating in an action that attempted to bankrupt their employer there would have been years of litigation ahead before they would have seen any cent. Not because OpenAI would have been right to punish them, but because it could and the latent threat to do it is what keeps people in line.
Or (3), shut down the company. OpenAI's non-profit board had this power! They weren't an advisory committee, they were the legal and rightful owner of its for-profit subsidiary. They had the right to do what they wanted, and people forgetting to put a fucking quorum requirement into the bylaws is beyond abysmal for a $10+ billion investment.
Nobody comes out of this looking good. Nobody. If the board thought there was existential risk, they should have been willing to commit to it. Hopefully sensible start-ups can lure people away from their PPUs, now evident for the mockery they always were. It's beyond obvious this isn't, and will never be, a trillion dollar company. That's the only hope this $80+ billion Betamax valuation rested on.
I'm all for a comedy. But this was a waste of everyones' time. At least they could have done it in private.
It's the same thing, really. Even if you want to shut down the company you need a CEO to shut it down! Like John Ray who is shutting down FTX.
There isn't just a big red button that says "destroy company" in the basement. There will be partnerships to handle, severance, facilities, legal issues, maybe lawsuits, at the very least a lot of people to communicate with. Companies don't just shut themselves down, at least not multi billion dollar companies.
You’re right. But in an emergency, there is a close option which is to put the company into receivership and hire an outside law firm to advise. At that point, the board becomes the executive council.
Adam is likely still on the "decel" faction (although it's unclear whether this is an accurate representation of his beliefs) so I wouldn't really say they lost yet.
I'm not sure what faction Bret and Larry will be on. Sam will still have power by virtue of being CEO and aligned with the employees.
It's also naive to think it was a struggle for principles. The rapid commercialization vs. principles is what the actors claim to rally their respective troops, in reality it was probably a naked power grab, taking advantage of the weak and confuse org structure. Quite an ill prepared move, the "correct" way to oust Altman was to hamstring him in the board and enforce a more and more ceremonial role until he would have quit by himself.