I see news posts about the CEO being fired, all the staff threatening to leave, then the CEO being rehired and the board being fired. What the heck is this all about??

  • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ll give you the details up to the current news, but this shit has been changing pretty rapidly, so I can’t promise this will be accurate by dawn. Shit’s wild. Anyway…

    So, Sam Altman (The CEO of Open AI) gets fired by the board out of nowhere. Dude literally got shit-canned over a zoom call. That’s like impeaching the President via carrier pigeon. They also try to fire his buddy and Open AI co-founder, Greg Brockman, but Brockman pulled the Uno Reverso and said, “You can’t fire me! I quit!” After that, the board gives a weak-ass press release that leaves more questions than it answers.

    Next, the employees of Open AI start to ask questions, like, “What did Sam do?” And the board can’t answer. They only say, “We didn’t trust him. Don’t ask us for examples.” And that’s that.

    Sam gets a call from Microsoft, and they are like, “Hey, wanna do what you were doing, but with more big dick energy?” And Sam was like, “Hold on, I’m getting another call.” The other call was from the board of Open AI in full panic mode because 75% of their employees threatened to walk if they didn’t reinstate Sam. Sam says he needs to take the call on the other line, and switches back to the Microsoft call. “Big dick energy, you say? I’ll do it!” And Sam takes the job at Microsoft, and brings a whole bunch of people with him.

    Now the board is fucked. Sam says, “Sure, I’ll come back, but if I do, all you fuckers gotta go. I’ve got big dick energy now, and I intend to use it.” And so, the board steps down, and Sam comes back.

    I think that’s about it. It’s fucking wild.

    Edit: Also, immediately after the termination, there was speculation that it had sometime to do with Altman’s sister’s claims of incest and rape against her. The claims are unfounded, and all of the people crying for his head are oddly silent now that we all know it wasn’t because there was some big sex abuse scandal coming down the pipe.

    • HuddaBudda@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Feels like there is more to this story then what’s on the surface, either way the CEOs should have had concrete proof ready rather that “We’re the board, we know better then you.”

      That was obviously not going to go well, especially because Microsoft has had their eye on AI this whole time.

      Just means the board were fools three times for the price of one mistake.

    • BOMBS@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Woah, sounds like a whole bunch of unnecessary drama. I was wondering if there was something related to AI or relevant, but it doesn’t seem like it.

      Thanks for answering! 😀

    • schmorp@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      If only it wasn’t that rich = power I’d just wave off all the clown show going on up there.

      On the other hand, ignoring them and their shitty products might be the best option.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Right. The board of directors at open ai were unhappy with how the ceo was communicating with them, so they voted him off.

    Then a group of stakeholders and staff were like “no guys, we want him back or we resign/withdraw our funding”

    So now he is back with Microsofts blessing, MS being their largest stakeholder, and it sounds like some of the directors who voted to out have also been booted.

    Here is a decent writeup.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/microsoft_openai_altman_nadella/?td=rt-3a