Interesting. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “fiscal sponsor”, and I don’t really want to go down that road. My understanding of nonprofit governance norms is that if a board member has concerns about their organization (and they probably do—they have a shit tone more access and confidential information than most people, and no organization is perfect) then they can express those concerns privately to the rest of the board, to the executive director, to the staff. They are a board member, they have access to these people, and they can maintain a much better working relationship with these people and solve problems more effectively by addressing their concerns privately. If a board member thinks something is so dramatically wrong with their organization that they can’t solve it privately, and the public needs to be alerted, my understanding of governance norms is that the board member should resign their board seat and then make their case publicly. Mostly this is a cached view, and I might not endorse it on deep reflection. But I think a lot of people involved in governance have this norm, so I don’t think that Sam Altman’s enforcement of this norm against Toner is particularly indicative of anything about Sam.
Like many I have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes, so this is pure conjecture, but one can imagine a world in which Toner “addressed concerns privately” but those concerns fell on deaf ears. At that point, it doesn’t seem like “resigning board seat and making case publicly” is the appropriate course of action, whether or not that is a “nonprofit governance norm”. I would think your role as a board member, particularly in the unique case of OpenAI, is to honor the nonprofit’s mission. If you have a rogue CEO who seems bent on pursuing power, status, and profits for your biggest investor (again, purely hypothetical without knowing what’s going on here), and those pursuits are contra the board’s stated mission, resigning your post and expressing concerns publicly when you no longer have direct power seems suboptimal. Seems to presume the board should have no say whether the CEO is doing their job correctly when, in this case, that seems to be the only role of the board.
Oh, I agree that utilitarian considerations, particularly in the case of an existential threat, might warrant breaking a norm. I’m not saying Toner did anything wrong in any objective sense, I don’t have a very strong view about that. I’m just trying to question Zvi’s argument that Sam and OpenAI did something unusually bad in the way they responded to Toner’s choice. It may be the case that Toner did the right and honorable thing given the position she was in and the information she had, and also that Sam and openAI did the normal and boring thing in response to that.
You do seem to be equivocating somewhat between board members (who have no formal authority in an organization) and the board itself (which has the ultimate authority in an organization). To say that a dissenting board member should resign before speaking out publicly is very different from saying that the board itself should not act when it (meaning the majority of its members) believe there is a problem. As I am reading the events here, Toner published her article before the board decided that there was something wrong and that action needed to be taken. I think everyone agrees that when the board concludes that something is wrong, it should act.
Interesting. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “fiscal sponsor”, and I don’t really want to go down that road. My understanding of nonprofit governance norms is that if a board member has concerns about their organization (and they probably do—they have a shit tone more access and confidential information than most people, and no organization is perfect) then they can express those concerns privately to the rest of the board, to the executive director, to the staff. They are a board member, they have access to these people, and they can maintain a much better working relationship with these people and solve problems more effectively by addressing their concerns privately. If a board member thinks something is so dramatically wrong with their organization that they can’t solve it privately, and the public needs to be alerted, my understanding of governance norms is that the board member should resign their board seat and then make their case publicly. Mostly this is a cached view, and I might not endorse it on deep reflection. But I think a lot of people involved in governance have this norm, so I don’t think that Sam Altman’s enforcement of this norm against Toner is particularly indicative of anything about Sam.
Like many I have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes, so this is pure conjecture, but one can imagine a world in which Toner “addressed concerns privately” but those concerns fell on deaf ears. At that point, it doesn’t seem like “resigning board seat and making case publicly” is the appropriate course of action, whether or not that is a “nonprofit governance norm”. I would think your role as a board member, particularly in the unique case of OpenAI, is to honor the nonprofit’s mission. If you have a rogue CEO who seems bent on pursuing power, status, and profits for your biggest investor (again, purely hypothetical without knowing what’s going on here), and those pursuits are contra the board’s stated mission, resigning your post and expressing concerns publicly when you no longer have direct power seems suboptimal. Seems to presume the board should have no say whether the CEO is doing their job correctly when, in this case, that seems to be the only role of the board.
Oh, I agree that utilitarian considerations, particularly in the case of an existential threat, might warrant breaking a norm. I’m not saying Toner did anything wrong in any objective sense, I don’t have a very strong view about that. I’m just trying to question Zvi’s argument that Sam and OpenAI did something unusually bad in the way they responded to Toner’s choice. It may be the case that Toner did the right and honorable thing given the position she was in and the information she had, and also that Sam and openAI did the normal and boring thing in response to that.
You do seem to be equivocating somewhat between board members (who have no formal authority in an organization) and the board itself (which has the ultimate authority in an organization). To say that a dissenting board member should resign before speaking out publicly is very different from saying that the board itself should not act when it (meaning the majority of its members) believe there is a problem. As I am reading the events here, Toner published her article before the board decided that there was something wrong and that action needed to be taken. I think everyone agrees that when the board concludes that something is wrong, it should act.