This is really interesting. It makes perfect sense that they weren't sitting at 6 board members for 9 months because Sam and the others didn't see the implications, but because they saw them all too well and were gridlocked.

But then it gets interesting inferring things from there. Obviously sama and gdb were on one side (call it team Speed), and Helen Toner on the other (team Safety). I think McCauley is with Toner (some connection I read about which I don't remember now: maybe RAND or something?).

But what about D'Angelo and Ilya? For the gridlock, one would have to be on each side. Naively I'd expect tech CEO to be Speed and Ilya Safety, but what would have precipitated the switch Friday? If D'Angelo wanted to implode the company due to conflict of interest, wouldn't he just have sided with Team Safety earlier?

But maybe Team Speed vs Team Safety isn't the same as Team Fire Sam vs Team Don't. I could see that one as Helen, Tasha, and Adam vs Sam, GDB, and Ilya. And, that also makes sense to me in that Ilya seems the most likely to flip for reasons, which also lines up with his regret and contrition. But then that raises the question of what made him flip? A scary exchange with prototype GPT5, which made him weigh his Safety side more highly than his loyalty to Sam?