Why Sam Altman Was Booted From OpenAI, According To New Testimony (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0179988182
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/06/2344248/why-sam-altman-was-booted-from-openai-according-to-new-testimony
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/814876/ilya-sutskever-deposition-openai-sam-altman-elon-musk-lawsuit
> What did Ilya see?" Two years ago, it was the meme seen 'round the world (or at least 'round the tech industry). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had been [1]briefly ousted in November 2023 by members of the company's board of directors, including his longtime collaborator and fellow cofounder Ilya Sutskever. The board claimed Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board," [2]undermining their confidence in him . He was out for less than a week before being reinstated after hundreds of employees threatened to resign. But observers wondered: What hadn't Altman been candid about? And what led Sutskever to turn against him?
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> Now, [3]new details have come to light in a legal deposition involving Sutskever , part of Musk's ongoing lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI. For nearly 10 hours on October 1st, bookended by repeated sniping between Musk's and Sutsever's attorneys, Sutskever answered questions about the turmoil around Altman's ouster, from conflicts between executives to short-lived merger talks with Anthropic. He testified that from personal experience and documentation he'd viewed, he'd seen Altman pit high-ranking executives against each other and offer conflicting information about his plans for the company, telling people what they wanted to hear.
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> The testimony paints a picture of a leader who could be manipulative and chameleon-like in the relentless pursuit of his own agenda -- though Sutskever expressed hesitation about his reliance on some of the secondhand accounts later in testimony, saying he "learned the critical importance of firsthand knowledge for matters like this." In a statement toThe Verge, OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois said that "The events of 2023 are behind us. These claims were fully examined during the board's independent review, which unanimously concluded Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI." The comment echoes a 2024 statement by board chair Bret Taylor, following an investigation conducted by the company.
Altman "exhibits a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs, and pitting his execs against one another," reads a quote from the memo Sutskever. Altman told him and Jakub Pachocki, who is now OpenAI's chief scientist, "conflicting things about the way the company would be run," leading to internal conflict and repeated undermining.
Sutskever said he also faulted Altman for "not accepting or rejecting" former OpenAI research executive Dario Amodei Dario's conditions when he wanted to run all research and fire OpenAI president Greg Brockman, implying Altman played both sides.
Furthermore, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati surfaced claims that Altman left Y Combinator for "similar behaviors. He was creating chaos, starting lots of new projects, pitting people against each other, and thus was not managing YC well."
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/11/17/2137216/sam-altman-fired-as-ceo-of-openai
[2] https://slashdot.org/story/23/12/09/059212/before-sam-altmans-ouster-openais-leaders-were-warned-of-abusive-behavior
[3] https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/814876/ilya-sutskever-deposition-openai-sam-altman-elon-musk-lawsuit
TLDR; (Score:3, Insightful)
He's a cunt.
He didn't lie! (Score:3)
He hallucinated.
Re: Why he was booted (Score:2)
Yes it is anti semantic
Already Knew That (Score:2)
That was already known. Those are literally the reasons cited by the board when they removed him. Heck, it was talked about extensively throughout the book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. This isn't news.
This was known, the interesting part is... (Score:1)
It seems that there's a desperate need to argue with results/reality among journo class today.
You can call Altman a "bad man" all you want. He actually continues to deliver results. And his sole job, and a measuring stick by which he is measured is "is he delivering results or not?"
Specifics of how he does it is only relevant for those within his organization.
Essentially this seems to be another case of farming naive people who genuinely believe that "bad men" shouldn't lead for clicks.
Re: (Score:2)
Altman delivers results? Guess he didn't flew into a rant when asked by business journalist how he spouts large numbers for future endeavors while making so little revenue with OpenAI. Oops, he did just that.
Anthropic however doesn't care that much about the common user and has a business model that caters for the enterprise. their numbers are a lot lower than OpenAI's numbers, but Anthropic is on much more solid footing, financially speaking. So if the AI bubble pops sooner than later, I see OpenAI fail so
Meh. (Score:2)
> The testimony paints a picture of a leader who could be manipulative and chameleon-like in the relentless pursuit of his own agenda
Welcome to the corporate world. The only thing worse than the aforementioned leadership is when middle management runs off in their own multiple directions and leadership can't or won't reign those morons in.
Yeah, fortunately nobody is dumb enough to... (Score:2)
Fortunately, nobody is dumb enough to give these bozos a trillion dollars with just a whiff of a concept of something that could potentially be useful for more than a laugh.
Re: (Score:2)
> Fortunately, nobody is dumb enough
Don't get on an airplane.
manipulative and chameleon-like (Score:2)
> The testimony paints a picture of a leader who could be manipulative and chameleon-like in the relentless pursuit of his own agenda
This explains why a large percent of the most talented rising corporate mid-level executives stop working to start a family.
Dealing with sociopaths on a daily basis is not agreeable to having a family, hence bail out of the labor force in ones mid-30s to have the first child.
Dealing with upper executives bent on 996 or more work hours from everyone in the corporation.
Re: (Score:1)
Welcome to the natural world. This behavior is normal among all social species with hierarchical social structures.
It's why every human culture has it.
Re: (Score:2)
> chameleon-like in the relentless pursuit of his own agenda
Huh, so America really *is* run by lizard people? I guess I owe some apologies.
Re: (Score:1)
actual lizard or just lizardbrained, the lack or under-use of midbrain and cortical structure reveals itself either way.
The right wing is openly espousing actual brainlessness with their hate-on for empathy. They'd probably think that was pretty funny until they saw the degree of self-own