I was going to write stuff about integrity, and there’s stuff to that, but the thing that is striking me most right now is that the whole effort seemed very incompetent and naive. And that’s upsetting.
I am now feeling uncertain about the incompetence and naivety of it. Whether this was the best move possible that failed to work out, or best move possible that actually did get a good outcome, or a total blunder is determined by info I don’t have.
I have some feeling of they were playing against a higher-level political player which both makes it hard but also means they needed to account for that? Their own level might be 80+th percentile in reference class of executive/board type-people, but still lower than Sam.
The piece that does seem most like they really made a mistake was trying to appoint an interim CEO (Mira) who didn’t want the role. It seems like before doing that, you should be confident the person wants it.
I’ve seen it raised that the board might find the outcome to be positive (board stays independent even if current members leave?). If that’s true, does change the evaluation of the competence. Feels hard for me to confidently judge that, though my gut sense is Sam got more of what he wanted/common knowledge of his sway than others.
The initial naive blunder was putting Sam Altman in CEO position to begin with. It seems like it was predictable-in-advance (from e. g. Paul Graham’s comments from years and years ago) that he’s not the sort of person to accept being fired, rather than mounting a realpolitik-based counteroffensive, and that he would be really good at the counteroffensive. Deciding to hire him essentially predestined everything that just happened; it was inviting the fox into the henhouse. OpenAI governance controls might have worked if the person subjected to them was not specifically the sort of person Sam is.
How was the decision to hire him made, and under what circumstances?
What needs to happen for this sort of mistake not to be repeated?
I am now feeling uncertain about the incompetence and naivety of it. Whether this was the best move possible that failed to work out, or best move possible that actually did get a good outcome, or a total blunder is determined by info I don’t have.
I have some feeling of they were playing against a higher-level political player which both makes it hard but also means they needed to account for that? Their own level might be 80+th percentile in reference class of executive/board type-people, but still lower than Sam.
The piece that does seem most like they really made a mistake was trying to appoint an interim CEO (Mira) who didn’t want the role. It seems like before doing that, you should be confident the person wants it.
I’ve seen it raised that the board might find the outcome to be positive (board stays independent even if current members leave?). If that’s true, does change the evaluation of the competence. Feels hard for me to confidently judge that, though my gut sense is Sam got more of what he wanted/common knowledge of his sway than others.
The initial naive blunder was putting Sam Altman in CEO position to begin with. It seems like it was predictable-in-advance (from e. g. Paul Graham’s comments from years and years ago) that he’s not the sort of person to accept being fired, rather than mounting a realpolitik-based counteroffensive, and that he would be really good at the counteroffensive. Deciding to hire him essentially predestined everything that just happened; it was inviting the fox into the henhouse. OpenAI governance controls might have worked if the person subjected to them was not specifically the sort of person Sam is.
How was the decision to hire him made, and under what circumstances?
What needs to happen for this sort of mistake not to be repeated?