Yeah, that makes sense and does explain most things, except that if I was Helen, I don’t currently see why I wouldn’t have just explained that part of the story early on?* Even so, I still think this sounds very plausible as part of the story.
*Maybe I’m wrong about how people would react to that sort of justification. Personally, I think the CEO messing with the board constitution to gain de facto ultimate power is clearly very bad and any good board needs to prevent that. I also believe that it’s not a reason to remove a board member if they publish a piece of research that’s critical of or indirectly harmful for your company. (Caveat that we’re only reading a secondhand account of this, and maybe what actually happened would make Altman’s reaction seem more understandable.)
Hm, to add a bit more nuance, I think it’s okay at a normal startup for a board to be comprised of people who are likely to almost always side with the CEO, as long as they are independent thinkers who could vote against the CEO if the CEO goes off the rails. So, it’s understandable (or even good/necessary) for CEOs to care a lot about having “aligned” people on the board, as long as they don’t just add people who never think for themselves.
It gets more complex in OpenAI’s situation where there’s more potential for tensions between CEO and the board. I mean, there shouldn’t necessarily be any tensions, but Altman probably had less of a say over who the original board members were than a normal CEO at a normal startup, and some degree of “norms-compliant maneuvering” to retain board control feels understandable because any good CEO cares a great deal about how to run things. So, it actually gets a bit murky and has to be judged case-by-case. (E.g., I’m sure Altman feels like what happened vindicated him wanting to push Helen off the board.)
Yeah, that makes sense and does explain most things, except that if I was Helen, I don’t currently see why I wouldn’t have just explained that part of the story early on?* Even so, I still think this sounds very plausible as part of the story.
*Maybe I’m wrong about how people would react to that sort of justification. Personally, I think the CEO messing with the board constitution to gain de facto ultimate power is clearly very bad and any good board needs to prevent that. I also believe that it’s not a reason to remove a board member if they publish a piece of research that’s critical of or indirectly harmful for your company. (Caveat that we’re only reading a secondhand account of this, and maybe what actually happened would make Altman’s reaction seem more understandable.)
Hm, to add a bit more nuance, I think it’s okay at a normal startup for a board to be comprised of people who are likely to almost always side with the CEO, as long as they are independent thinkers who could vote against the CEO if the CEO goes off the rails. So, it’s understandable (or even good/necessary) for CEOs to care a lot about having “aligned” people on the board, as long as they don’t just add people who never think for themselves.
It gets more complex in OpenAI’s situation where there’s more potential for tensions between CEO and the board. I mean, there shouldn’t necessarily be any tensions, but Altman probably had less of a say over who the original board members were than a normal CEO at a normal startup, and some degree of “norms-compliant maneuvering” to retain board control feels understandable because any good CEO cares a great deal about how to run things. So, it actually gets a bit murky and has to be judged case-by-case. (E.g., I’m sure Altman feels like what happened vindicated him wanting to push Helen off the board.)