As usual, a useless title. This reports a lot of interesting things, but who's going to read it with such a generic title?
Overall: This one leaks heavily from the Altman/Conway camp but also from the director side, especially what must be Adam D'Angelo. The meaning of all this leaking is that the players have moved into phase 3, warring over the independent report, which will determine whether Altman stays & appoints the new board, or whether his proxy Brockman replaces him and he gets possibly a more ceremonial role like board chairman and bows out quietly (similar to his YC firing where he was going to be an advisor etc and then all that got quietly ignored). Note how Brockman has been built up as Altman's equal and has been running marathon meetings at OA with everyone possible (see his tweets - with photographs, no less) while Altman is, oddly considering how hard he worked to get back into the building, hardly to be seen.
- previously we knew Altman had been dividing-and-conquering the board by lying about others wanted to fire Toner, this says that specifically, Altman had lied about McCauley wanting to fire Toner; presumably, this was said to D'Angelo.
- Concerns over Tiqgris had been mooted, but this says specifically that the board thought Altman had not been forthcoming about it; still unclear if he had tried to conceal Tigris entirely or if he had failed to mention something more specific like who he was trying to recruit for capital.
- Sutskever had threatened to quit after Jakub Pachocki's promotion; previous reporting had said he was upset about it, but hadn't hinted at him being so angry as to threaten to quit OA
- Altman was 'bad-mouthing the board to OpenAI executives'; this likely refers to the Slack conversation Sutskever was involved in reported by WSJ a while ago about how they needed to purge everyone EA-connected
- Altman was initially going to cooperate and even offered to help, until Brian Chesky & Ron Conway riled him up
- the OA outside lawyer told them they needed to clam up and not do PR like the Altman faction was
- both sides are positioning themselves for the independent report overseen by Summers as the 'broker'; hence, Altman/Conway leaking the texts quoted at the end posturing about how 'the board wants silence' (not that one could tell from the post-restoration leaking & reporting...) and how his name needs to be cleared.
- Paul Graham remains hilariously incapable of saying anything unambiguously nice about Altman
Paul always has this delicate restraint in praising Altman it's hilarious. It's like he knows there might be a scandal one day and he doesn't want to have those positive endorsements lying around
(+) Larry Summers on the board and overseeing the report is a really good choice. Summers is truly a high-intellect individual (entered MIT at age 16 to study physics, one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard). More importantly, he is known to be someone who thinks for himself, can't be controlled, and can sort relevant from irrelevant. Blunt and arrogant too.
> Paul Graham remains hilariously incapable of saying anything unambiguously nice about Altman
The joy of getting rid of someone cleanly with mutual agreement to not talks it publicly and not to diss each other.
On the other hand, Summers did lend his credibility to the crypto scam DCG and helped lay the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis. He gets in over his head sometimes.
Summers is a rubber stamp: See what Elizabeth Warren said he said to him: “ He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders.”
> Altman was initially going to cooperate and even offered to help, until Brian Chesky & Ron Conway riled him up
I don't think the article supports this. All we know is that sama appeared cooperative when the board fired him. This was probably a reasonable posture for him to adopt regardless of his actual intentions at the time.
I believe it. Note that this story is being sourced from Altman/Conway, even to the level of their private text messages. So they would have to be the ones fabricating this claim, but this story is embarrassing to them: if they were going to make it up, Altman's change of heart would be prompted by appeals from employees or the board (which was in fact the version of the story that was initially circulating on social media and Altman is still trying to spin as the reason the Board eventually called him). As it is, it comes off as duplicitous & destructive and highly unflattering: 2 rich CEOs/VCs riling him up to go back on his promise to try to take over and burn down OA if he can't.
Regarding Summers: I remember reading a quote from a Summers/Kissinger type that said something like a person’s role at the Kissinger/Summers level was to carry-out/justify the policies of the super elite, not to come up with their own. Does anyone know if Summers was the one to say this? (I’m not talking about the advice he gave to Warren which is related but not the quote I’m thinking of)
I strongly disagree. If the report was guaranteed to be a whitewash (it may well turn out to be one, of course, but that's exactly what the current fight is over), the ex-Board & Shear & Taylor wouldn't be appealing to it constantly in all their public statements, nor would they have made it their primary condition, nor would they have brought on Summers to oversee it as a 'broker', nor would Altman sound so nervous about it and talk about how he welcomes it and will cooperate to better understand his miscommunications etc, and especially isn't talking or acting like someone who expects to be there forever with OA as his personal fief once he packs a new board with loyalists.
If it's a gratitude tour for restoring Sam (or more cynically, probing everyone for their loyalties & attitudes in person), why isn't Sam the one doing all the meetings and in all the photos?
Overall: This one leaks heavily from the Altman/Conway camp but also from the director side, especially what must be Adam D'Angelo. The meaning of all this leaking is that the players have moved into phase 3, warring over the independent report, which will determine whether Altman stays & appoints the new board, or whether his proxy Brockman replaces him and he gets possibly a more ceremonial role like board chairman and bows out quietly (similar to his YC firing where he was going to be an advisor etc and then all that got quietly ignored). Note how Brockman has been built up as Altman's equal and has been running marathon meetings at OA with everyone possible (see his tweets - with photographs, no less) while Altman is, oddly considering how hard he worked to get back into the building, hardly to be seen.
Key points:
- another reporting of internal OA complaints about Altman's manipulative/divisive behavior, see previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38573609
- previously we knew Altman had been dividing-and-conquering the board by lying about others wanted to fire Toner, this says that specifically, Altman had lied about McCauley wanting to fire Toner; presumably, this was said to D'Angelo.
- Concerns over Tiqgris had been mooted, but this says specifically that the board thought Altman had not been forthcoming about it; still unclear if he had tried to conceal Tigris entirely or if he had failed to mention something more specific like who he was trying to recruit for capital.
- Sutskever had threatened to quit after Jakub Pachocki's promotion; previous reporting had said he was upset about it, but hadn't hinted at him being so angry as to threaten to quit OA
- Altman was 'bad-mouthing the board to OpenAI executives'; this likely refers to the Slack conversation Sutskever was involved in reported by WSJ a while ago about how they needed to purge everyone EA-connected
- Altman was initially going to cooperate and even offered to help, until Brian Chesky & Ron Conway riled him up
- the OA outside lawyer told them they needed to clam up and not do PR like the Altman faction was
- both sides are positioning themselves for the independent report overseen by Summers as the 'broker'; hence, Altman/Conway leaking the texts quoted at the end posturing about how 'the board wants silence' (not that one could tell from the post-restoration leaking & reporting...) and how his name needs to be cleared.
- Paul Graham remains hilariously incapable of saying anything unambiguously nice about Altman