OpenAI Drama The Inside Story of Altman's Dismissal and Return
TapTechNews May 29th news, the OpenAI board suddenly ousted the company's co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman from his post on November 17th, 2023. Although this 'palace drama' temporarily came to an end with Altman's return to the CEO position, the inner story is still confusing.
After the 'palace drama' happened, many media dug deep into the story behind it and observed from different perspectives. Now former board member Helen Toner has shared a new piece of the story puzzle, telling from her perspective the events that led to the board members no longer trusting Altman and how he finally returned. TapTechNews attaches the video as follows:
Alienation
Toner believes that one of the reasons why the OpenAI board no longer trusts Altman is that Altman did not inform the board that he owned the OpenAI Startup Fund.
And another reason is that the board believes that Altman 'epeatedly' provided inaccurate information about the company's security procedures.
Toner said that after she published a research paper that angered the chief executive, she became the target of Altman. She said, 'Altman started to lie to other board members and tried to squeeze me out of the board'.
Two senior executives directly told the board about their experiences with Altman, described the toxic atmosphere at OpenAI, accused Altman of 'psychological abuse', and provided evidence of Altman 'lying and manipulating in different situations', and the board finally took action.
Why the firing was so sudden
After the board decided to introduce a new CEO, they thought the best way was behind Altman's back.
Toner said, 'We all know very clearly that as long as Altman has any sign that we might do something that is not in his favor, he will do his best to try to undermine or even prevent us from firing him.'
The board's supervisory power was'suspended'
Toner took the launch of ChatGPT as an example, saying that the board had no substantial supervision of the company before. Before OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, the company's board was not informed in advance, and Toner said she learned this news from the X (former Twitter) platform.
Restoring Altman's CEO position
Toner believes that the main reasons why the OpenAI board finally decided to restore Altman's CEO position are in three aspects:
Employees being coerced
The employees only have two choices for the development of things (abandon the board and let Altman resume his post or watch the company fall apart). Since everyone does not want the company to fall apart, they all support the other choice.
Fearing Altman's retaliation
Altman will retaliate against others and be afraid of going against him.
Altman's previous performance at OpenAI
Toner said that after the 'palace drama' last November, many media unearthed Altman's career.
He had worked at YCombinator for a while and the related scandals had been covered up.
Before that, he also worked at the Silicon Valley start-up Loopt, and the management team had twice petitioned the board to fire him on the grounds of so-called deception and chaos.
If you really look at his resume, you will find that his recommendation letters are not so glorious.