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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Do you know their motivations? Because that is the main question everybody has: why did they do it?

I guess I should rephrase that as if they did it because they perceived that Altman was maneuvering to be untouchable within the company and moving against the interests of the nonprofit, they did the right thing. Just, again, way too late because it seems he was already untouchable.

According to the letter they consistently refused to go on the record why they did it and that would be as good a reason as any so then they should make it public.

I'm leaning towards there not being a good reason that doesn't expose the board to immediate liability. And that's why they're keeping mum.

That might also explain why they don’t back down and reinstate him. If they double down with this and it goes to court, they can argue that they were legitimately acting in what they thought was openAI’s best interests. Even if their reasoning looks stupid, they would still have plausible deniability in terms of a difference of opinion/philosophical approach on how to handle AI, etc. But if they reinstate him it’s basically an admission that they didn’t know what they were doing in the first place and were incompetent. Part of the negotiations for reinstating him involved a demand from Sam that they release a statement absolving him of any criminal wrongdoing, etc., And they refused because that would expose them to liability too.

Exactly. This is all consistent and why I think they are in contact with their legal advisors (and if they aren't by now they are beyond stupid).

Unfortunately lawyers almost always tell you to be quiet, even when you should be talking. So in this case listening to legal advice might have screwed them over, ultimately.

There's no reason Sam and the board can't come to a mutual agreement that indemnifies the board from liability if they publicly exonerate Sam.

Yes, that's a possibility. But: Sam may not be the only party that has standing and Sam can only negotiate for his own damage and board liability, not for other parties.

I'm leaning toward the reason being that Sam did something that created a massive legal risk to the company, and that giving more details would cause the risk to materialize.

I question that framing of a growing Altman influence.

Altman predates every other board member and was part of their selection.

As an alternative faming, Maybe this is the best opportunity the cautious/antripic faction would ever get and a "moment of weakness" for the Altman faction.

With the departure of Hoffman, Zilis, and Hurd, the current board was down 3 members, so the voting power of D’Angelo, Toner, McCauley was as high as it might ever be, and the best chance to outvote Altman and Brockman.

Apparently Hoffman was kicked out by Sam, not just Musk: https://www.semafor.com/article/11/19/2023/reid-hoffman-was-...

Maybe the remaining board members could see the writing on the wall and wanted to save their own seats (or maybe he did move to coup them first and they jumped faster).

Either way, they got outplayed.

interesting but weird article. It was hard to tell which statements were from insiders with Hoffman and which were commentary from the article's author.

That may very well have been the case but then they have a new problem: this smacks of carelessness.

Carelessness for who? Alman for not refilling the board when he had the chance? Others for the way they ousted him?

I wonder if there were challenges and disagreements about filling the board seats. Is it normal for seats to remain empty for almost a year for a company of this side? Maybe there was an inability to compromise that spiraled as the board shrank, until it was small enough to enable an action like this.

Just a hypothesis. Obviously this couldnt have happened if there was a 9 person board stacked with Altman allies. What I dont know is the inclinations of the departed members.

Carelessness from the perspective of those downstream of the board's decisions. Boards are supposed to be careful, not careless.

Good primer here:

https://www.onboardmeetings.com/blog/what-are-nonprofit-boar...

At least that will create some common reference.

Using that framework, I still think it is possible that this is the result of legitimate and irreconcilable differences in opinion about the organization’s mission and vision and execution.

Edit: it is also common for changing circumstance to bring pre-existing but tolerable differences to the relevant Forefront

Yes, and if that is so I'm sure there are meeting minutes that document this carefully, and that the fall-out from firing the CEO on the spot was duly considered and deemed acceptable. But without that kind of cover they have a real problem.

These things are all about balance: can we do it? do we have to do it? is there another solution? and if we have to do it do we have to do it now or is there a more orderly way in which it can be done? And so on. And that's the sort of deliberation that shows that you took your job as board member serious. Absent that you are open to liability.

And with Ilya defecting the chances of that liability materializing increases.

I see your point.

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