> Almost the entire company was threatening to quit.
This is the part that perplexes me. A CEO being fired is not an unusual occurrence. What about Sam Altman led such a huge number of employees to threaten to follow him out the door? Was it that the board's actions were viewed as internally unjust? Was it Altman's power of persuasion? Was/is Altman viewed by the staff as bringing something irreplaceable to the table in terms of talent, skill or ability?
> What about Sam Altman led such a huge number of employees to threaten to follow him out the door?
My understanding is that a fair amount of it was essentially peer pressure. If you're an employee whose CEO has just been fired for unclear reasons, and someone hands you a chain letter saying "restate him or everyone will quit" and you're told everyone's signing that letter and there's already someone who promised to hire everyone who quits into their current role at equal pay, would you sign it?
My understanding is that it was not so much peer pressure so much as an explicitly coordinated worker action, based on a rational assessment of what their comp packages would look like if the board's plan played out completely.
Scenario A, Sam Altman continues as CEO and the for profit arm of OpenAI continues to call the shots, growth and market share continue to be priority number one.
Scenario B, Sam Altman is fired, OpenAI non-profit board (re?)-asserts more control. Safety, alignment and other things like that take priority over growth and market share.
x% of Employees are Sam believers, and when the remaining x% of ambiguous/non-Sam believers realize the first x% might leave, their PSUs would be worth significantly less, so they sign the letter as well. There is also the peer pressure / fear of retribution factor as well once it becomes likely there is even a chance of Sam being reinstated.
Many employees choose scenario A because it is likely their "profit sharing units" will be worth more than with scenario B. There's a non-zero chance that OpenAI (the for profit arm) eventually joins the ranks of the "FAANG" companies. Those PSUs might be worth millions today, but in the future could be worth "fuck you" levels of money.
So then why did the board re-hire Sam Altman? A non-profit board should want a CEO befitting a non-profit company in my eyes, not one that promotes a for-profit culture. I see losing employees with for-profit motives as a desirable side effect of firing Sam Altman.
Yeah... and? OpenAI is pretty much a for-profit company now. Why shouldn't a non-profit board pull the plug on a non-profit turned for-profit? Isn't that a part of their job?
And then it can't use that money on its mission because it shut down.
> Isn't that a part of their job?
No, it isn't. Their job would be to use the income that they received from that part of the business and spend it on their mission.
There are all sorts of non profits that operate in a similar way.
In fact acting sustainably is generally a positive for non-profits because it means that you can be more effective for longer without having to rely on donations.
Yeah, for what it's worth, I'm not guessing about the comment I wrote; could be totally wrong, but it's something I heard from two different people close to the story.
It’s important to understand that the board oversaw the nonprofit, and their job essentially was to protect the nonprofits mission. Most of the employees were hired by the for-profit company whose mission it is to make money. In theory the for profit was owned and subservient to the non profit but the engineers financial future was tied to the for profit and thus their loyalty.
The equity offering was nearing and then the board just fired Altman out of nowhere and had no credible reasons or a narrative to sell to the employees, then they quickly caught on that their comp would go to smokes with this clueless lot at the helm who can't even justify a firing without making a pig's breakfast of the whole affair and demanded the reinstatement of the CEO for their pocket's sake, simple as that.
I would argue it is a demonstration of what Altman is capable of bringing about. He can make things like this 'happen' for him.
Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander, and now, our current batch.
This is the part that perplexes me. A CEO being fired is not an unusual occurrence. What about Sam Altman led such a huge number of employees to threaten to follow him out the door? Was it that the board's actions were viewed as internally unjust? Was it Altman's power of persuasion? Was/is Altman viewed by the staff as bringing something irreplaceable to the table in terms of talent, skill or ability?