Why would you think this stuff wasn't in writing? Do you think the investigation OAI did into the board's actions was just relayed orally?[1] That the board's discussions where all done in conference calls and not in e-mail? Do you think that this documentation gets routinely released to the public or even employees? Before you throw around accusations of incompetence, you should probably have some shred of evidence. This is the type of stuff that is typically considered extremely confidential and even now they say they are unable to reveal details. Why do you think that is? What is preventing them from doing something they apparently want to? Legal agreements such as NDAs, the same ones that would have prevented them from going public with details last years.
The board's mistake was not figuring out a way to go public with their case against Sam when or before they fired him. They obviously misjudged how he would respond. But even there we don't know the full context and constraints they were under. Hopefully, one of them will answer that question of why they didn't at some point, but until we know more, we would be wise to reserve judgement.
> Before you throw around accusations of incompetence, you should probably have some shred of evidence.
The evidence is in this interview. It sounded like the board basically let Altman walk all over them until they suddenly decided that they wanted to fire him, but by then it was too late. For example, if they had a thorough paper trail documenting all of his lies, they could threaten a lawsuit pressuring him to resign. If YC fired him, they likely would have used a similar strategy to pressure him to step down without any blowback.
> they could threaten a lawsuit pressuring him to resign
This is extremely confused about the board's responsiblities and powers. A court would laugh this case out of court because the board _can just fire him_.
This has nothing to do with the board's power. Simply firing him doesn't stop him from taking all his employees with him. The lawsuit would be for the damage of Altman's lies, and would prevent him from simply starting another AI company.
The board's mistake was not figuring out a way to go public with their case against Sam when or before they fired him. They obviously misjudged how he would respond. But even there we don't know the full context and constraints they were under. Hopefully, one of them will answer that question of why they didn't at some point, but until we know more, we would be wise to reserve judgement.
[1] https://archive.is/wbwC2