“Sam Altman recently told some shareholders that OAI is considering changing its governance structure to a for-profit business that OAI’s nonprofit board doesn’t control. [...] could open the door to public offering of OAI; may give Altman an opportunity to take a stake in OAI.”
Quick point—a “benefit corporation” seems almost identical to a “corporation” to me, from what I understand. I think many people assume it’s a much bigger deal than it actually is.
My impression is that practically speaking, this just gives the execs more power to do whatever they feel they can sort of justify, without shareholders being able to have the legal claims to stop them. I’m not sure if this is a good thing in the case of OpenAI. (Would we prefer Sam A / the board have more power, or that the shareholders have more power?)
I think B-Corps make it harder for them to get sued for not optimizing for shareholders. Hypothetically, it makes it easier for them to be sued for not optimizing their other goals, but I’m not sure if this ever/frequently actually happens.
In the case of OpenAI it also means that Sam doesn’t hold any stock in OpenAI and thus has different incentives than he would if he would own a decent amount of stock.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has privately said the company could become a benefit corporation akin to rivals Anthropic and xAI.
Paywalled: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-ceo-says-company-could-become-benefit-corporation-akin-to-rivals-anthropic-xai
“Sam Altman recently told some shareholders that OAI is considering changing its governance structure to a for-profit business that OAI’s nonprofit board doesn’t control. [...] could open the door to public offering of OAI; may give Altman an opportunity to take a stake in OAI.”
Perhaps I am too cynical, but it seems to me that Sam Altman will say anything… and change his mind later.
It’s still interesting that he calculated, that it is advantageous to say it.
Quick point—a “benefit corporation” seems almost identical to a “corporation” to me, from what I understand. I think many people assume it’s a much bigger deal than it actually is.
My impression is that practically speaking, this just gives the execs more power to do whatever they feel they can sort of justify, without shareholders being able to have the legal claims to stop them. I’m not sure if this is a good thing in the case of OpenAI. (Would we prefer Sam A / the board have more power, or that the shareholders have more power?)
I think B-Corps make it harder for them to get sued for not optimizing for shareholders. Hypothetically, it makes it easier for them to be sued for not optimizing their other goals, but I’m not sure if this ever/frequently actually happens.
In the case of OpenAI it also means that Sam doesn’t hold any stock in OpenAI and thus has different incentives than he would if he would own a decent amount of stock.
It would seem strange to me if that’s legally possible, but maybe it is.