So… OpenAI happened… and Bryan and Adam try it break it down with help from Steve Tuck and even more special guest Chuck McManis.
In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by variously special guests Steve Tuck and Chuck McManis.
In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by variously special guests Steve Tuck and Chuck McManis.
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:
- Hacker News: OpenAPI's board has fired Sam Altman
- Employee Letter to OpenAI's Board
- Who Controls OpenAI? by Matt Levine, the G.O.A.T.
- Axios: Who is Larry Summers, the controversial pick to join OpenAI's board
- Mike Olsen: What is a Board of Directors For?
- Fermat's Last Theorem (an + bn = cn only possible for n = 1 or n = 2)
> I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain. - Fermat Homer vs. Fermat - IBM and the Holocaust
Creators & Guests
What is Oxide and Friends?
Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form.
Join us live (usually Mondays at 5pm PT) https://discord.gg/gcQxNHAKCB
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Adam, how
Speaker 2:are you?
Speaker 3:Hey. I'm
Speaker 4:good. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. I'm doing
Speaker 4:well. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry about the kind of the no huddle here. He,
Speaker 4:I'm all for it. This is how we do it.
Speaker 2:This is how we do it. This is how we do it. Yeah. As you said, we've been on Shake Your Ground.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean, I can think of a few episodes.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So, I've got a special guest, in in the litter box. Well, you know, actually, maybe not so special a guest. Sorry, Steve.
Speaker 3:So Right.
Speaker 4:Just a guest.
Speaker 2:Just whoever. Just a guest. I think we gotta demote. At some point, like, you know, you're not here enough when you get demote. Special guest that just guest.
Speaker 2:So sorry, pal. Totally.
Speaker 1:Dragged in in the no huddle offense.
Speaker 2:In the no huddle. Yeah. So, but we so we are here to talk, about the the boardroom brawl, because we we took a hiatus on Oxide and Friends. We were, Adam, we were you were out, and I was out. We were kind of visiting family naturally as one does in the Thanksgiving week here in the US.
Speaker 2:And, you know, getting ready for, kind of stitching things up, I was, gonna be with my mom all last week and getting ready to be done on on I think it was Friday afternoon. Right, Steve? Was that when the unless the whole thing went down? Yeah. And, just so the this started with an absolutely remarkable message from the OpenAI board on, on the the fate of their CEO, Sam Alba.
Speaker 2:So, Adam, do you where were you when you, when you saw this?
Speaker 4:I I think I was, like, packing for flying or something like that. I I can't remember. But, but I but Bob like, a bunch of friends were texting in the, like, text thread. And I was like, why has the oxide folks not pinged me yet? And of course, oxide, all channels were blowing up with the news simultaneously.
Speaker 2:They were all and so, actually, I I was listening to, do you have news in The Journal podcast? Do either of you No.
Speaker 4:I don't.
Speaker 2:The journal's good. The the it's a it's a news by the Wall Street Journal. And, I mean, the the people you've really got a feel for when something this is huge news, huge business business news does not get larger than this, where you have one of the most one of the largest, most important corporations just summarily fired their celebrity CEO. Founder CEO. What's that?
Speaker 4:Founder CEO as as founder's CEO.
Speaker 2:Founder CEO. And so that alone is just like, you've got major major news, and this reporter from The Wall Street Journal was saying, I would I dashed out of my apartment so quickly that she forgot to close her door. Her door was open for for for 3 and a half hours, basically. And the and I don't know if you were watching this over the weekend, like, there were so many turns to this drama. The reporters are like, dear god, I I need to sleep.
Speaker 2:Like, you Yeah.
Speaker 1:Some of the reporters had slept in 2 days. And
Speaker 2:so part of the reason this would have been big news no matter what, but the thing that made this just, like, off the charts 10.0 on the boardroom Richter scale was the language in the termination of Sam Altman. So that and I'm gonna do you mind if I read this, Adam?
Speaker 3:Please do. Please do.
Speaker 2:Alright. So, so just in first of all, we should just say, when a CEO is fired, it's generally referred to pretty euphemistically. The, you know, hey, we we, you know, we thank Bob for his his hard work, and Bob was gonna remain an adviser to the company. Bob's gonna spend some more time with his family. It's gonna be there's gonna be some kind of flavor of thank you for your service.
Speaker 2:And we just I'm I'm going out you know what I like in it too? And actually, this is kind of when we had a a CEO transition at a previous company. I the way you really need to think of a CEO is and sorry, Steve. I guess guess you're in the room. Is, as a starting pitcher for baseball.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is the way a board thinks of a of a CEO. It's like it's a starting pitcher. And it's like
Speaker 4:Not you not you, Steve, to be clear. But No.
Speaker 2:No. No. No. No. Not you, Steve.
Speaker 2:You're our Generally speaking, you're our ace.
Speaker 1:You're by the blue band. You're you're you're going
Speaker 2:to go
Speaker 4:to the audience. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Go the distance. But you and you're, you know, and you're going out to get the ball from your starting pitcher.
Speaker 1:And it's
Speaker 2:like, look, kid. This wasn't your day. It's fine. It's like it's not and, you know, you don't, like, announce that, like, by with the way, like Or
Speaker 1:a good day, but your day's done.
Speaker 2:It's it's a good day.
Speaker 4:Drunk and vomiting. Right? Right.
Speaker 2:You, you don't come out there with, like, a police officer when you get him off the starting map. You know what I mean? It's like and I I do I do think it's like this is you know, we ask the being a CEO is the hardest job by far, and we ask so much of of CEOs, and it's it's not unreasonable that over time. Steve, did you see you ever having this conversation? A 100%.
Speaker 2:Okay. Good. I'm I I I
Speaker 4:thought I
Speaker 1:don't know why you called me in.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. This is making it so much easier. I thought this was gonna be annoying.
Speaker 4:Yeah. This is why we're doing
Speaker 1:it in public. Just like, gotta join this. Right.
Speaker 2:So we need you to join this Google Meet right now. Yeah. If you could join this Google Meet, please. Adam and I are both here, waiting for you. The, so the I mean, it's done cordially, and then it's occasionally done, like, less than cordially.
Speaker 2:Like, you know, Bob is no longer with the company.
Speaker 4:You're like,
Speaker 2:woah, what happened to Bob? But, like, no further detail, and then you're just like, okay, Bob. Wow. Okay. Bob is now you got something that's going on.
Speaker 2:And then you got so that's it. And then there's like a whole bunch of, I would say, dead space, and then you get to the language that they used for Sam. So mister Altman's departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI, which is just like holy God. So, Steve, what was your thought when you read that?
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, it it it a nuke had dropped, and it was so the other shoe that was going to drop was so significant that it was gonna potentially put at risk OpenAI entirely, the board. There was something significant here that was going to include legal matters. Crimes, A 100%.
Speaker 2:A 100% crime.
Speaker 4:Right. Because not consistently candid has the smell of euphemism. Covering just such an overwhelming stench.
Speaker 1:We it's Legal activity. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So so there are there are 2 things here that that's word euphemism to me. So not consistently candid says this person's been lying to us. And then hindering its ability, the board's ability to exercise its responsibilities, I'm like, the board thinks that they may have accidentally committed crimes because of the lie to them.
Speaker 4:This is like Theranos level stuff.
Speaker 2:This is beyond Theranos level. This is this is like we are in accordance with the the call I just had with the DOJ. I'm gonna issue this. Literally, I'm like, my first thought was, this is criminal, and he has fundamentally misrepresented some aspect of the financial position such that they are not a 501c3 was my first thought. Like, they have lied on their 990.
Speaker 2:Every one of these board members is, like, I'm gonna go to jail. Like, like, I got a kid who's about to go to high school. I don't know. They're like,
Speaker 4:Sam, I'm I'm not going to the can for you, buddy. You're you're wearing this one. Right?
Speaker 2:You you you're wearing this one. I mean, like, that is just, like, no doubt. And I think, Steve, that was your and I don't know if that was your take as well. But it was just, like, I think anyone who's had had been around a boardroom at all is just like, this is not because people are like, well, do you think it could be, like, sexual impropriety? And they're like, no.
Speaker 2:Because sexual impropriety would be kind of in that former category of, like, no longer with the company. Not because Not crim well, I mean, could be.
Speaker 1:But but in this case, you know, criminal wrongdoing, and that endangers that endangers the board.
Speaker 2:It endangers the board personally, where they've got, like, a lawyer for OpenAI is like, you could go to jail. Like, everyone needs a lawyer up right now. And by the way, your your, executive and director insurance is not gonna cover you. Or I mean, there's there's Because if
Speaker 1:not for that, it just is not written that way. It's like
Speaker 2:you would never write it that way. You would never write it that way. And so then I'm like, oh my gosh. And now I would say, of course, in this, you know, we, as we at Oxide, had our launch some number of weeks ago. And, you know, I, it was it got a lot of attention on Hacker News.
Speaker 2:And we had noted in particular, this is the 200 and 22nd most popular story in Hacker News history. And no one was, I was like, hello 223. I'm like, there is just can you
Speaker 1:look at it like this?
Speaker 2:It's Oh
Speaker 4:oh, and then gee at the top of the comments being like, everyone, if you could just log out and touch grass,
Speaker 2:like, it would help me a lot. No. Totally. Like, Hacker News having to hit, like, the safety valves. Like, Hacker News literally gonna blow up because they like, this
Speaker 1:Which is hard to do given the infrastructure they run it on.
Speaker 2:Since you overrun. How do you overrun a single core running for GSD? That's right. Hey, listen. I I I I admire their architectural approach, but the so, yeah, they are like, yeah, Adam.
Speaker 2:Right? That's a good memory. Like, you know, like, can you please log everyone logged did you log out, by the way? It actually did make it a lot better if you logged
Speaker 4:out. No. I was not following it in real time like you were, but it's fine that you were. Don't
Speaker 2:don't don't don't fill this house with lies. Okay. So
Speaker 4:Wait. Are you saying I'm not being consistently candid?
Speaker 2:I I'm just saying you're not being consistently candid. And frankly, I no longer have your have confidence in your ability to continue with this podcast. Not the
Speaker 4:first time I've heard it. Okay.
Speaker 2:That's it. So, the so that happens, and then it becomes clear, over the kind of the the the weekend that, Altman is taken aback by it. I'm actually a little bit surprised, and Steve, I think you were too, by the number of people just, like, blanketly defending Sam Altman on this. Mhmm. I'd be like, man, I would be, like, taking us given that statement, I would just, like, let's just sit this one out and let's see Right.
Speaker 2:Let's pause.
Speaker 4:What let's see what this is about.
Speaker 2:Let's let's see what this is about. And then it becomes and and they have named the the, the they've named this woman as the the interim CEO, and then I guess I I think the next thing to drop, I guess, was Greg Brockman.
Speaker 4:Well, hold hold on if I'm if I may. I I don't think I'm getting this out of order, but in the Wall Street Journal, apparently, the leadership team, pressed the board over, the course of 40 minutes for specific examples, and the board agreed to discuss the matter with their counsel. And after a few hours, they came back still unwilling to provide specifics, and they said that Altman wasn't candid, often got his way. And they said that Altman was so deaf that they couldn't even give a specific example.
Speaker 1:And I
Speaker 4:just love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That it's like at what point along here it'd be interesting to know if I could from a journalist perspective or Adam, maybe, from your perspective or Steve from your perspective. Like, at what point you're just, like, wait a minute. Did this am I are you putting me in the uncomfortable position of having to have sympathy for Sam Altman here? Because that would be really, really unfortunate.
Speaker 4:Answer for him?
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, and it it became the so then so they also then then some of the dynamics of how he was terminated start. And and Greg Brockman in particular, tweets out a that a statement and x's out a statement.
Speaker 2:What do you even say that post? Whatever. Tweets out a statement. And it's it's pretty clear that, like, Brockman, not on board, with whatever has happened. Like, Brockman is definitely not on on board with it.
Speaker 2:And they have said I mean, this is amazing to me that they have told Brockman, we want you to be involved with the company. We want you to stay involved with the company. We're just, like, just we're we're we're we're kicking you off the board. It's like, do do you think that somebody is gonna is that gonna work, do you think? And Brockman's like, I quit.
Speaker 2:Of course, I quit.
Speaker 1:And Well, I think the other thing that happened before that is Brockman said when the events in question when I became aware of the events in question and I I might be getting the the words wrong. But he was basically saying, you know, when I became aware of this and everyone was just like, what are you talking about? You were in you were on the board.
Speaker 2:You're on the board. Right. True. Yes. Mean when it came to your attention?
Speaker 1:Right. We're front and center for this. Because, again, at the time, you're just like, there's some big, big, big story drop.
Speaker 2:That's right. An indictment to drop, honestly. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and he was saying, you know, I'd I, when that came to my attention, I think he, you know, then, like, realized that I should step down from the board seat, and, it just raised even more questions. What is going on here?
Speaker 2:What is going on? And it just seemed pretty clear that, like, oh my god. This is just is this an amateur board? It's like this, this actually this the board cannot be this amateur because and this I actually still have questions on this. It's like, a lawyer read your statement though, surely.
Speaker 2:Surely. I mean, surely. Surely. Surely. Surely.
Speaker 2:Surely. I mean,
Speaker 4:surely. Right? Like, you don't you don't fire the CEO without having told some some grown up I would assume. Like a lawyer.
Speaker 1:Well and, again, it just feel it felt so hasty that once again, there was some big story that had not been unearthed yet, and then I think it was within 24 hours they came out with their second statement.
Speaker 2:Right. And their second statement was, and I I I don't give the second statement in front of you, but but but but digging for you. It's more or less like, oh, oh, no. No. There was no there was no no malfeasance.
Speaker 2:There's no malfeasance. It's like Like, what? Woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker 2:Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker 2:Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker 2:Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker 1:Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah, Internet.
Speaker 4:Hold on.
Speaker 1:There was no malfesence
Speaker 2:from that. It's like, okay. I mean, you're obviously, like, I you like, surely, you had
Speaker 1:a lawyer read your sex,
Speaker 2:and I I also feel that, like Okay. I am, like, not litigious, and I there are lots of reasons why I don't find Sam Altman sympathetic. And you are now you, Open Eye Outboard, are now putting me in the position where I feel that Sam that Sam Altman should be litigious. I I wanna I wanna go litigate on Sam Altman's behalf because he's got a really serious case against that board. No question.
Speaker 2:I mean, I I just feel it's like without a doubt, and use I still think they're gonna be other there there have to be other returns on this, but, I mean, that it it it's, which one is written? Is it it is would it be, libelous. Right? Slanderous? Which one is which?
Speaker 2:Which one's written? I don't even know. But you would I mean, they've absolutely defamed him, and they have Without question. Without question, and they've done it, like, probably knowingly. Because, like, one thing it's kinda clear is, like, I think it might be some personalities involved.
Speaker 2:I think you've I I I think you all might hate one of the Scotts.
Speaker 1:That started to become more and more. Right. Well, and now people are saying, as with the second statement, I think that is when everybody went into detective mode of, like, let's take a part who the board is. Right. Right.
Speaker 1:Who are these people?
Speaker 3:Who are
Speaker 2:these people? And, you know, this is where I I I do feel that kind of is worth kinda taking a step back. All 3 of us have served on boards, and, I've been, you know, I've been on on company boards, and I had non profit boards, and not not a ton of them, but but it, you know, enough. And, you know, when you are on a board, like, your responsibility is the executive leadership of the organization. It is the executive director of your nonprofit is the CEO.
Speaker 2:And, you know, you never take terminating a CEO or an executive director lightly. I mean, that's gotta be something because it's like, you know, as a board, you've got limited visibility to what's going on. You you don't take it lightly. You don't take it. You don't treat it hastily.
Speaker 2:You do not treat it hastily. And because you are now taking responsibility, in particular, I because I remember, you know, I was in an organization long ago, and, you know, we had an executive director that a lot of people had issues with. And, you know, I I could see the issues, but I could also thought I I saw a huge number of positive qualities that she had. And I also knew that, like, you know, this is a search for like, our organization has, like, got some, you know, got some warts on it. And a search for a new leader for this organization, it's like you're gonna be it's not gonna be pretty.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, I think sometimes it's very easy to focus on leadership's faults and not seeing their strengths, and then not really kind of being realistic about what a search looks like, and what a search looks like from an organization that has no leadership, which is actually not I mean, it was just kinda like I mean, to go you're based on the allergy, it's like, I've pulled the picture, and now we're just gonna have no one on the mound for a second. Just just give me a little while. Just leave the mound out there. I'm gonna go find it. I'm gonna go back into the locker room and we go find a picture
Speaker 4:of score. Well, Ian, presumably because you're down 27 to nothing. Right? You're only talking about
Speaker 2:this kind of You're down
Speaker 1:27 to nothing.
Speaker 4:Totally. You're you're only talking about the surprise kind of almost vindictive change because things have gone so far off the rails. So then you're conducting a search
Speaker 2:for the person
Speaker 4:who wants to sign up to go in down 27 nothing.
Speaker 2:Also, bases are loaded in their their demands, by the way. I the they you're just kinda like, okay. Yeah. I don't wanna do this. I like, actually, it turns out, like, lots of other people don't wanna come in to this messy situation.
Speaker 2:Right? And I don't even know you've been in these situations too where it's like, you know, I I when you have decapitated leadership or you you have a total absence of leadership, anyone rightfully is gonna be like, what is wrong with the the org? Not just and there probably is something wrong with the org, frankly, because you got a bunch of bunch of mess that's been left by the person you just gotten rid of. And you basically indicated to the world, like, hey, we got, we've got problems. We got big, big problems.
Speaker 4:It is kind of indicative of the people who are who are interested in the position at that point. Yes. It is indicative. Only in the, you know, like, good people can show up, but certainly lousy people also will be inclined to show up.
Speaker 2:Lousy people are definitely gonna be inclined to show up. I do think it's always entertaining, like, you get just the total pranks. It's like, well, I'll I'll run OpenAI. Sure. Like, why not?
Speaker 2:Because you almost, like, don't want anyone who's gonna volunteer for
Speaker 1:the job.
Speaker 2:Yes. And it would be interesting to know the dynamics because the so then the, I don't I I gotta get, like, the sequencing right about when they name the interim c so they have the the the letter they they name the the interim CEO, and she's like, I don't wanna be the CEO. Like, I don't want she she was not,
Speaker 1:It it almost felt like they named her without her full support. Without her full support. Naming or even awareness of. Now they'd said that, she was part of conversations the night before it was announced.
Speaker 2:Which is crazy. Which I mean, just as
Speaker 1:well Greg. So Greg, both of them were part of this meeting the night before, which, again, is all part of that first 24 hours where it was you know, everyone was to understand that there was malfeasance, and there was a group of people that supported the decision. Narrator's voice. Definitely the opposite.
Speaker 2:Oh, well, it wasn't. Everyone's trying to figure out kinda what the vote count is on on this board. And the other thing is it's weird is that Brockman was the chairman of the board. So this is something I wanted to ask you is at and I I guess as we get into the bylaws about can a non chair see the I actually have questions about like the just to get super by law nerdy here. Like, did they have quorum?
Speaker 2:Did they have I mean, because he
Speaker 1:I mean, we I was about to say they could they wouldn't have done it without, but then there's a whole bunch of stuff that should not have or would not have done it without.
Speaker 2:But you need I mean, for and, obviously, we I I just we could probably could pull their bylaws because of it's it's a nonprofit. But, I mean, we generally, one needs 24 hour notice to have a board meeting. Right? Mhmm. And that generally has to be in writing.
Speaker 2:Is it I mean, obviously, this depends on by on your violation.
Speaker 1:Depends on bylaws. Right. Because you can have situations where you can call an emergency
Speaker 2:board meeting. You can call an emergency board meeting, but you need they'd be without 24 hours of notice. I guess, again, it depends on the bylaws. But okay. So the way that we we've got a structure for, got it.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, get it out. And the the but but then what
Speaker 1:you can't I mean, the reason that that's in there is so that you give everyone an opportunity to be able to attend. Like, you can't you can't, call a board meeting and set that time limitation so short that people can't send. Right. That's why you have those limitations in place.
Speaker 2:The the right. Right. Right. Right.
Speaker 1:The okay. So so, presumably, they gave notice with ample time meeting their bylaws, and then were able to get everyone together. It is strange that the chairman of the board this is my question.
Speaker 2:It's like a mechanical question. Right? That, like, how is the chair I mean, what what is the role of the chair if not to be the one initiating that meeting? I don't know. I I mean
Speaker 4:I think that that also depends on the bylaws. I mean, I've been on boards where the chair, like, literally was a position that we had invented, for the outgoing CEO to have a little bit of pride.
Speaker 2:But doesn't that mean that the CEO is the chair if you don't have a separate chair?
Speaker 4:I don't know. I think it may depend on the bylaws, but I'm not sure how much power that necessarily carries. It again, depending on the specific structure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, you you are our lawyer. You are Adam Lippincol. Corporate lawyer. Corporate attorney.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 4:This is legal advice, folks.
Speaker 2:This is legal advice. Let me just tell you something that those other chickens won't tell you. This is legal advice. I am your lawyer. And no.
Speaker 2:I'm not no. I've not passed the bar in any state.
Speaker 4:Good investment advice for you too if you stick around.
Speaker 2:That's right. I got I got investment advice. Who wants medical advice? You want medical advice. So the then there is a, at at some point, and it's somewhere in this drama, there is a, a petition that gets signed by folks at OpenAI demanding that Altman be restored.
Speaker 4:By, like, something like 90% of employees.
Speaker 1:Before that, you had, like, 3 senior engineers. 3 people that were Yeah.
Speaker 2:Of course. The researchers were
Speaker 1:like, wow. Researchers that
Speaker 2:were saying,
Speaker 1:wow. Yep. And then the kind of rumors that many, many more people were gonna leave if, and looks like someone posted oh, someone is Adam. Job, Adam. The letter where then you had, like, yes, 720 of 770 employees that said that if he was not reinstated, they would they would quit.
Speaker 2:They would re they they would quit. Okay.
Speaker 4:So they quit and go to Microsoft and work for Sam?
Speaker 2:Yes. And now we are in, like, if this thing started out in bonkers land, and now we're just in, like, where are we?
Speaker 1:These are hour by hour change.
Speaker 2:These are hour by hour changes. And then one of the signatures oh, so it it should be said that one of the the board members who's the chief scientist, Lisa Skibber. I'm I'm probably mispronouncing that name. But so Ilya was the, on the the board had said it's, like, it it's regrettable that happened this way. Like, this did not happen in the best possible way or what's up.
Speaker 2:So it's like, okay. I was gonna that's definitely true. Indeed. It could have been worse. And the but then his name is one of the signatories of the thing demanding that that it's like, what?
Speaker 2:Where
Speaker 1:are we? Where are we?
Speaker 2:Now what are where and this is when you just realize, like, oh my god. This board had absolutely, positively no idea what they were doing. And I whatever their good intentions were, they all failed, I gotta say. I mean, as a in terms of, like, your responsibility because part of your responsibility to the organization is actually, like, stability of that organization. And the the like, you have somebody who's who's contemplating and the board is small.
Speaker 2:Right? They had they had 5 people, and the 5 people are gonna fire 2 of them. Right. It's like, wow. Are you really?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Certainly not your job to destabilize the company.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's like, are we sure that that's what we want? Have you, like, have you talked to a lot of people about this? Is this the right is this the prudent approach? Is this the only approach?
Speaker 2:Is this the only path left? And because it's like, even if you decided this, like, you know, we've really got that this is the move we need to actually make. You've gotta get buy in from the p like, you gotta get Greg and Sam to agree that that's the transition that makes sense.
Speaker 1:And at the very least, you need to have, you know, some level of understanding or buy in from the broader organization.
Speaker 2:So and I think this gets to, like, a a a a bigger theme that I do think that for folks haven't been on a board or, as you are on a board, as you answer to a board, as you're involved in the board, boards in in particular, the board meeting is not a place for surprises. Like, you do not want you shouldn't have sudden movement in a board meeting, I would say. And I think that the No. That's right. And if you've got bad news that happens, you make sure that
Speaker 1:Get that out in advance.
Speaker 2:In advance.
Speaker 1:Because what you wanna talk about is not the bad news. You wanna talk about what next.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right.
Speaker 3:So so I just jump in here real quick. We, Yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Chuck. How are you?
Speaker 3:I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 2:Doing well.
Speaker 3:So I I like you, I was really astonished at this whole event, the way it unfolded. But, one of the interesting things is to is to think about it in terms of before the board made any moves, what were people thinking? And then after the board made its moves, what were they thinking? And I am on the I'm the treasurer of a nonprofit and on the board of of it. And, one of the interesting things here is if you're going to fire the CEO, you have to assume, at least our lawyer told us, you have to assume the CEO is going to sue you for being fired, for no cause.
Speaker 3:And then and so you have to have, a case almost that you can lay out, you know, in in clear language, this is why we're firing you, these steps: a, b, c, and d. And when the board of OpenAI was unable to do that, it it struck me as this is clearly an inexperienced board. This is not a board that had thought about this in a way and something has spooked them. Like you said, I'm waiting for, you know, the the shoe to drop where, you know, oh, by the way, our AI just generated 18 gigabytes of child porn and we're all the hook for possession or something. Right?
Speaker 3:So, the interest there's a great column by Matt Levine, if you read Matt over in Bloomberg, which talks about the control lines on open AI and then it has this giant money line where Microsoft is talking to the for profit subsidiary and it's clear, I think, now, it wasn't then, but it's clear now that a lot of money is on the table and that, causes people to act in a way which is perhaps more money centric than, board responsibility centric. And I think what really I felt like this became sort of conflicts between Sam and the board and Sam was seems to be very entrepreneurial, right? He wants to he wants to make money and wants to make this stuff work. And that's kind of his thing. And the board said, you know, he's spinning up way faster than we can control and we don't know what we can do, so we just have to stop this right now.
Speaker 3:And they didn't really talk to their general counsel clearly because if they had they would have made a much better case.
Speaker 1:Do they have a general counsel? Like,
Speaker 2:general counsel, you talk no. He he died 2 years ago tragically, a heart attack. We have a we were still looking. We we got an open wrapped chair. That's nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And no. You you actually, it brings up a good point though, because I think the other thing that was so stunning for folks is that, Microsoft was completely blindsided. Unbelievable. Unbelievable that they were blindsided. They put 10, 10,000,000,000 of dollars.
Speaker 1:It's like, we're sitting here,
Speaker 2:you know, if you're an entrepreneur, like, it's it's hard to raise much smaller dollar figures than $10,000,000. And I would just like to say that there are people who've put much less than $10,000,000,000 in the Oxide that I believe that we keep pretty well informed and well informed that we're under no, like we have no even though you got board observers, obviously.
Speaker 1:You got information rights. You got You got
Speaker 2:information rights, but but we go beyond that, obviously.
Speaker 1:You want well beyond that.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, to I mean, it's just shocking
Speaker 1:that For them to be blindsided. I mean, it just and this is kind of the point in which it seemed to jump the kind of kind of broadened the the folks that were paying attention to it because I I noticed when this showed up at the Thanksgiving table, like, this is the I did not expect OpenAI to make it to the Thanksgiving table. And the reason that they got them so quickly is because of the board's actions. And now it crossed over into, you know, one of, Katie's cousins is an insurance broker and specifically does d and o insurance. And he's piping up about this, and he's like, oh, the entire industry.
Speaker 1:You know, you have got, like, every board hitting up every management team asking what the DNO policy is for the company, and is there sufficient coverage? And, because at this point, everyone's convinced that the board of directors for OpenAI is gonna spend a lot of time in court.
Speaker 2:You would assume. I mean, I think that and maybe that was because, I mean, it was a kind of a question. Yep. Yeah. At that point.
Speaker 2:And as kind of as these these negotiations are going on to whether Sam and Greg go to Microsoft and effectively build OpenAI at rebuild OpenAI at Microsoft, which to me felt like that on the one hand, you know, we like to say that, you know, the the the the the company walks out the door every night, but on the other hand, they're like, is that totally true? I mean, can you just take could you take the hundreds of people at OpenAI and take them to Microsoft and have the same, without actually stealing anything? Would you because remember, like, you're kind of famously not like, the open and OpenAI is not exactly open, so you can't exactly use the same stuff. I don't know. The, but to the fact of the not but that not notified Microsoft, I thought was absolutely shocking to me.
Speaker 2:And but then clearly, Satya is getting in there and is, there is some leverage that's being exerted. And you do wonder if some of that leverage, Steve, that's being exerted isn't like, look. There's a lot you guys have done so many things incorrectly here that there is, there's a lot of fiduciary duty that you actually violate by doing this, and you could be liable for that. And the your check on this is, like, well, if you bring us back and, to which degree do you think that Alban wanted to be back too? That's the other thing.
Speaker 2:I I would
Speaker 1:Well, I think he did. I mean, there was the he he tweeted that he was back on Sunday afternoon, and he had a guest badge because he was no longer an employee. So he had a guest badge, and he was tweeting from a, like, a couch taking a selfie of, like, you know, this is the this is the first and last first
Speaker 2:and last time I do this. I know. Just bad. Well, you could take which you could take one of 2 ways. I was just like, yeah.
Speaker 2:A couple hours later
Speaker 1:was the other way. Well, you went into your point
Speaker 2:about the Thanksgiving table. I was like, so, mom, there's this thing called OpenAI. It's like, was Emmett Sheer still the interim CEO, or has happened? I'm like, alright. Okay.
Speaker 2:Right. We're okay. I guess we're we're quite caught right up on it. I don't know. Because then is that that's the other kind of angle in this is they they they they name Emmett Shearer as the interim CEO.
Speaker 1:Emmett at one point, unclear. Like, it was it was called CEO of the board, and then it was then corrected.
Speaker 2:And They had I did I missed CEO of the board? Yes.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. That is
Speaker 2:that is like this stuff's
Speaker 1:flying around. You've got reporters that haven't slept in 3 days. I mean, I'm trying to
Speaker 2:not listen to
Speaker 1:the people how quick all this is running.
Speaker 2:This is like OpenAI saying that. We have named him CEO of the board. Oh my god. He's gotta be like, oh, no. Please.
Speaker 2:I think I don't you don't mean that. We gotta what
Speaker 1:are you talking about?
Speaker 2:Oh my god. And the so you got and and then, you know, Chuck had braces for you. You know? And I think, you know, what is the kind of other shoe to drop? I think a lot of people are speculating.
Speaker 2:I think there's still speculation. I think we're still we are still a long way from having the full story here about, I think, Chuck, you had a very good speculation about, you know, whether is this because the there's tension between the commercial side and kind of the the putative non profit side, in terms of the of the 501c3, is there, then you have everybody is kind of seeing in this, like, Rorschach test what they wanna see. And you have the the people who believe it's like, no, no, no. It is the the AGI is here. And it is there's a disagreement about how to welcome our alien overlords.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's like, oh my god. Where are we right now? And then but then the fact that Emmett Shearer is this person who believes that I mean, he's the light cone, Adam. That's the light cone. Did you I I'm sure you realized that at the time, but, like like, we basically did an episode on this guy.
Speaker 4:Yes. No. I know. I know. The I I saw all of those.
Speaker 4:I think describing as a Rorschach test is so spot on because certainly all of the AI doomers who I follow on Twitter but won't admit to were convinced that, you know, maybe Sam was the hero here or Sam was the villain, but either way, AGI was involved.
Speaker 2:AGI was involved, and this is the accelerationists versus the d cells, which I admittedly I had not seen that term once we get them, like, oh, no. Of course. At the d cells. And and it shears something who believes that, like, we should pause. We should take it down to a 1 or a 2 from a 10.
Speaker 2:This is kind of his exact language. And you gotta think like, man, this is like, okay, you're the new CEO? Is it we're gonna bring it down to, like, okay. That I've got some questions about that. So that becomes an absolute mess.
Speaker 2:And so he and then he, and then immature, he can't get straight answers about why Altman is fired.
Speaker 1:And Yeah. He sends his so Altman, Sunday afternoon, is being brought back, purportedly. Right. Those discussions break down. And by Sunday night, Emmett Shears announced I think it was that same night he was announced and and sent off his kind of letter to the company by way of Twitter.
Speaker 1:Sunday night, when he had woken up, I think, was when that letter of, like, 730 people were resigning. Right.
Speaker 2:So that's tough. And everyone's doing the, like And
Speaker 1:and Satya had announced, Sam was coming to Microsoft to stabilize the Microsoft share price, that morning. And I think those 700, you know, some odd people were basically just gonna go over to Microsoft. And then, of course, you know, the Clippy jokes came out of, like, Clippy is the new open API.
Speaker 2:Well and you also had the I mean, I think that there was a lot of of, question about, you know, how when you have that kind of significant fraction of the of a company that is signing a petition, it's like, how is is there any, you know, is is everyone going to Microsoft with their free books? You're talking about going to Microsoft at this point, and but having their their kind of compensation met and so on. And and then somewhere in all of this, they, ultimately, like shared this is like, I I need to get a I'm not getting a straight answer about why Altman is gone. And as soon as I get a straight answer, I'm gonna share it with the with the company, but, if I don't get a straight answer, I'm gonna leave. It's like, oh my god.
Speaker 2:Okay. Now what? And then when was the the the and then ultimately, like, what? I think Kara Swisher had the scoop that Altman is actually coming back. Coming
Speaker 1:back. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so so then what they announce a new board. Right? And when was that? Was that on Tuesday? I'm working into the point where it's like, are you guys gonna do this through Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2:Like, can't we you gotta be done with us at the at at at at some point. And they announce a a new board. It was so then he goes to the Quora. They, the who's the Quora person, Adam?
Speaker 4:The Quora CEO.
Speaker 1:Quora CEO.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I know I know we'll get
Speaker 1:to the hot takes at some point, but that was there was one that was I mean, there were a couple that were pretty good, but one Adam
Speaker 2:D'Angelo.
Speaker 1:Was like, once again, you can ask Quora something and get no good answer. You're right. There's a lot of lot of sideswipes going on.
Speaker 2:Well, I I had my own sideswipe. I I I own, the I I did the little little Game of Thrones meme. You know? I I want Sam to know it was Quora because he he had a, potentially rival product and then there's that deal like, oh, his rival product was sabotage, so he kinda sabotaged the whole thing and that's not kinda seemed crazy. And then they actually announced their their, like, alright, we got a new board, and and I do think of, like, everybody is publicly trying to figure out what's going on as, obviously, we are too.
Speaker 2:And I think that one thing that is just important to know that this does shine a light on is just like if you look at someone, you know, state of someone's marriage, or relationship, or company, when you are on the outside of a thing, you don't know all of the inner workings. And we still are a long way from knowing the actual inner workings here, what actually happened. But when you're on the outside of a company, you do not know what's going on inside of that company. And when you are inside of the company, you do not know what's going on necessarily at the board. And the the the what can be happening at the board, it can be very, very different than what's happening in the company.
Speaker 2:I mean, we tried it hear with the transparency is really important to us, and we wanna make sure that that, folks know, like, that we we always, present, you know, the the decks that we present to the board, we present to the entire company. So everyone knows exactly what the board is saying. I think that's very important. Not every company does it that way. And do you, you know, you've got you don't necessarily know what's going on inside of inside of the board.
Speaker 2:And the so I think it's you know as people are kind of assuming that it's it's it's D'Angelo or then, you know, the the the these other the the 2 women that are on the board are getting absolutely vilified online, and the whole board's being vilified online. And to a certain degree, it's like, well, you I mean, you screwed up. And there's a level at which you you this is why you don't do it the way you you don't do what you did the way you did it because this is what happens. But on the other hand, it's like people don't deserve this kind of public bill.
Speaker 1:No. And we still just don't know. We don't know so much about the story.
Speaker 2:And then they name the new board, and it's gonna be, okay. We're gonna get Brett Taylor, who's got a good reputation in Silicon Valley. I don't know if you've ever I've never crossed paths. And I don't know if you ever crossed paths with Brett Taylor. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:But certainly, has got a has been on a bunch of boards, is indisputably a grown up with respect to boards. K. Fine. And then you get Adam D'Angelo still here. It's like, okay.
Speaker 2:So it looks like he he won. And then Larry Summers. Like, what?
Speaker 1:That's a head scratcher.
Speaker 2:That's a head scratcher. And this is where you get to, like, you you know, you kind of think of, like, board composition. And how do you get a what what is a good board composition look like? Because I I think it's always interesting to look at a board composition because it does also it it reflects, the way a CEO is operating too. And the Larry Summers thing, I think it raises so many red flags.
Speaker 2:I mean, Larry Summers, first of all, has got his own problem. I mean, Larry there there's some hair on that one. I mean, Larry Summers has got his own challenges and problems. Larry Summers is also, I've I mean, former secretary of the treasury, but is is, not the first person I would think of. Because I don't know, Adam.
Speaker 2:What what was your reaction to, to that one?
Speaker 4:It felt very out of left field. Again, felt like almost, Theranos playbook. But I didn't see that he he's on the board of block, you know, that Jack Dorsey company. So I don't know. Maybe he's in the family.
Speaker 2:Well and so and it's interesting you mentioned Theranos because Theranos I mean, describe some of the board members of community with Theranos board bingo. How many? Short work?
Speaker 4:Is the one I was is the Larry Summers analog I was trying to come up with.
Speaker 2:Not Bill Frist?
Speaker 4:Oh, good point.
Speaker 2:I mean, that board was loaded with, like, what? These are all, like, generals, admirals. I mean, was it was Henry Kissinger actually on the I I'm making that one up, I think.
Speaker 4:I think you're making that one up.
Speaker 2:The the, but it could have been, and that's the point. Sure.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Don't look it up.
Speaker 2:So that was definitely weird, and then I think it's like I obviously was not the only person to be like, hey, so you got rid I mean, the board now, like the composition of the board, optics are not great on this one. Like you you had a board that had 2 women on it, and now you've got a board that's got 0 women on it. And like you may wanna go solve that problem, among other things. I mean just like just like let's get some measure of diversity here. And, I I I think that they coulda I think they heard that they apparently, the board's first task is to grow to a much larger board size.
Speaker 2:What is the ideal board size? That's another good question. I guess I mean, obviously, it depends on the size of the answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think it's more I think it's, like, what what do you want the composition of the board to look like before what size do you want? Right. Because that because, like, what you're looking for then helps to dictate the size because you may want a bigger board with the right people added that are independent board members that add things that are gonna be useful for the company that can add you know, can can provide a bunch of benefit, and you may elect to have a bigger board in that case. I think you typically want to have an odd number of board members.
Speaker 1:I would say that would be, like, a, an easier path. But, you know, having the right having the right folks around the table, be it small, medium, large sized board is is, I think, the most important.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and I, you know, I gotta say, though, like, I if you are, you know, their number one goal, apparently, is now grow the board. It's not that attractive, I gotta say. As a board member, you gotta think, like, I don't know. I need to know everything and what that happened to.
Speaker 1:What is that, like, the top priority, grow the board?
Speaker 2:I think that they that
Speaker 1:is what they have said. Sorry. I got hung up going into Larry Summers' history and the fact that he was central in deregulating derivatives trading that led to the financial crash.
Speaker 2:That is actually the least of his problems. I I let
Speaker 1:me let me keep going.
Speaker 2:I I that is the least of his problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You
Speaker 2:need you need Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you in are you are you are you in arguing to the the board of the problems? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That's that yeah. The more of the problems are actually definitely problematic. God.
Speaker 2:Derivatives are fine. Yeah. And you could think it's, like, the the derivatives are fine. Yes. You would think that, you would at least, like, hit the Wikipedia page and, but you know, you never know.
Speaker 2:You know, I was, had known of a a CEO and, who had left the US, after, and and and the the kind of the scuttlebutt was that he had left the US on Instagram that he was not going to pay any of the taxes that he owed.
Speaker 1:Maybe took a picture, took a jet that he was boarding.
Speaker 2:He took a picture of a jet that he was boarding with, like,
Speaker 1:a middle finger tagging the
Speaker 2:IRS tagging the IRS. And then later, a the he was hired by someone I I knew someone on the board of a company that hired him. And my first thought was, like, okay. Obviously, like, that this is kind of apocryphal. This is a kind of a story.
Speaker 2:This is, like, clearly, they, like, it's something he was holding a bar, but, like, clearly, the guy does not owe a bunch to the IRS. And now it is weird, like, was coming from from Central America and was gonna be coming back to the US. And I talked to this board member, and I was like, yeah. Okay. You know, there's, what about, like, this tax issue?
Speaker 2:Is like, well, obviously, we had to clean that up before we brought him on as CEO. I'm like, wait. What? And this is where it just boggles the mind. Why would you bring on what what is the board process by which you'd bring on a CEO who had this, like, huge tax dispute they need to clean up before they could actually so you have
Speaker 4:the so thin for CEOs that you're like, well, maybe we can pay a few extra million to the IRS on this on this guy's behalf.
Speaker 2:Well and that was a company with a lot of problems. I I actually do think it's kinda the that when you've got a and, you know, this is the challenge when you've got organizations that got a lot of problems. Like, you don't have the pick of the litter when it comes to to leadership, for board member composition, or for for leadership, and then and then you get like these kind of nutty things that happen. The the or just I mean, just feels like very, very, very poor execution. One thing I would say is I saw a very good talk at Munkatoberfest, from Mike Olson.
Speaker 2:Do you know Mike?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Mike's from what?
Speaker 4:Yeah. From Cloudera. Right?
Speaker 2:From Cloudera.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's the founder and CEO of Cloudera, and, Mike gave a talk at Monctoberfest on, on the importance of independent board members and how you find independence. And it it was it was very good because I I think that one of the things that I didn't really realize is, like, you know, we accept the board governance as something that's really important to us. I mean, obviously, like, the board runs the company, and it's kind of remarkable when you encounter folks who well, these are, like, startups that don't have board meetings. It's like, yeah. We haven't we no.
Speaker 2:No. We don't do any board meetings. It's like, you don't the the what? There's just Yeah.
Speaker 1:We we think board meetings are are a legacy way of operating a company.
Speaker 2:Excuse me. And then you have the so you've got that. Then you have the the folks, the investors who are like, no. No. We never take board seats.
Speaker 2:And on the one hand, like, okay, investors that always take board seats may be problematic too, but, like, not taking ever taking a board seat. And I think sorry. Here's my the for your consideration, Adam, Steve. I think that the this that's a little bit of a zero interest rate phenomenon in that you had this kind of protracted era. Well, so first of all, like, way back in the day, it used to be boards had total control, entrepreneurs had none, and entrepreneurs were routinely fired.
Speaker 2:And you would routinely have they were talking like the b 80. Yep. And you would have, like, you start the company, you get investment, and you get fired 12 months later. Yep. Because they're gonna fire they're gonna find a professional CEO.
Speaker 2:Like, this was very typical John Scully is kind of like, you know, a a is a canonical example of that, but there were, like, lots and lots and lots of examples. And then folks realized that, like, actually, maybe we shouldn't do that. Maybe maybe a founder CEO actually knew what they were doing, and that was a mistake. And then we kinda went to the opposite extreme where it's like you have the Adam Newmans where they've got super controlling shares, this is still true for Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2:Facebook, I mean, Meta, he can I mean, he can change the company's name to Meta? He cannot be fired. It's a public company. He cannot be fired. He has super he has, he has control of the board.
Speaker 2:He's got super voting shares. And the and you would think it's kinda maybe in that era where investors are like, well, entrepreneurs gonna have super control anyway. It's just not worth taking a board suit. But I think it's a mistake. I mean, I think it's a it's a mistake because I think that, like, you actually wanna be in that kind of moderate middle where you, like, you need to have a board that's gonna work together to to actually
Speaker 1:Well, I don't even know that it was a choice. I mean, I think it was in that zero interest rate phenomena when you had companies that were raising and then and very competitive deals and Yeah. Being able to be investors, one offer was like, yeah, we won't take a board seat.
Speaker 2:Yep. That's the the it's
Speaker 4:the it's the all cash offer. No contingencies. No inspection. Yeah. Also a zero interest rate phenomenon.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you do have and you go so you have to get the optic stream of, like, investors that wanna put in very little money. And, I mean, they they don't wanna board seat, but they want a board observer seat, which is also a there's a big kind of there's a hassle factor that you're dealing with there.
Speaker 1:But you I I think in that era, you had a lot of companies that viewed, board members as kind of a tax, sort of an overhead that you had to deal with rather than, I think that Mike's talk was great, and he he was talking about, you know, what the board's job is and then what you're looking for in a board and a lot of the pros and a lot of the value that that, you know, what you want is you want board members that are that are passionate about the company and believe in the mission and do their homework. And they're trying to figure out how to better the company in in a bunch of different directions. And, I know we can we can certainly say that we're we're very lucky in that, you know, in our board meetings, the folks on the board are coming in having read all the materials.
Speaker 2:And, please, if you are if you are ever on a board, which
Speaker 1:I know sounds like a low bar, like, what do you mean read the Read the materials. I know. Isn't that just table stakes? Like, well, no.
Speaker 2:You'd be surprised.
Speaker 4:I know.
Speaker 2:And the you know, I think if you are if you are an executive, if you're a CEO, if you're an executive director, make sure that your board members have materials in advance. And then if you are on a board, please read those materials. It it is amazing to me. And, Adam, when you you've had boards, I'm sure you've been surprised
Speaker 4:by the people who have
Speaker 2:not read the materials in advance.
Speaker 4:Surprised to the point of my just complete confusion on my part. Like, how can you not understand, like, this was sent to you in advance. This is not that complicated. You're barely paying attention. This may sound quaint, but even if you're if you're joining a company, a startup of even like 100 of people, understanding the board is not a bad idea.
Speaker 4:If you've got a board with with founders and then, a bunch of their buddies are the board or they've got super majority rights, just don't be surprised by that. Like, when you the the last thing you want when you join a company is to be surprised by the executive structure and find out that, oh, the board doesn't have this power or the board is composed entirely of cronies who know nothing about the business. Because the board can be a very important check-in your favor as an employee. Like, knowing that there's someone who's out there reining in maybe the the potential, you know, craziness of a CEO.
Speaker 2:You know,
Speaker 4:not you, Steve.
Speaker 2:Not you, Steve. I mean, they yeah. Yeah. The the current company excluded. But, no.
Speaker 2:I mean, Adam, you know, both I mean, all 3 of us in previous lives have had CEOs that were fired by the board because they were reigning in the crazy. And the and I think that, you know, it's and it was actually kind of another point is that we have all been involved in boards that have fired their CEOs, and so we've all kinda seen the pro way to do this. Actually, one's very concrete anecdote on that. If you are in a position where you are on a board, and you need to fire a CEO, part of the reason that you want that you want to have them bought into their departure, which by the way is gonna cost you at some level. Right?
Speaker 2:You're going to have to accelerate their shares, you're going to have to pay them at some level, to leave amicably, but you want to leave them amicably, because I would say that one thing that that we learned, and again, previous lives, but, the the severance agreement of the CEO, forced their shares to vote management, which is really, really important. And that can be these kinds of things can be really important, because when when that company was acquired, the acquirer wanted a very, very, very high percentage of shares to vote for the deal. He wanted 97% to vote for the deal, which is extremely high. And by the
Speaker 1:way, these are these are 5 years apart. So it could
Speaker 2:have been Yes. These are 5
Speaker 1:years apart. Pretty trivial negotiated point on this transition, and yet ended up being very load bearing Very load bearing. For a transaction.
Speaker 2:For a transaction. And, fortunately, like, the that board did it right. Like, that when when the board kind of they, when they exited do you how do you feel about exit as a verb, Adam?
Speaker 4:I mean, it's a nice nice euphemism that you save for exactly the situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It it you you don't put it in doesn't performant bother you, or does performant bother you? Performant bothers
Speaker 3:me. Deeply.
Speaker 4:Deeply. Bothers me.
Speaker 2:How about learnings?
Speaker 4:I wanna talk about it. Learnings, I don't get as bent out of shape as you do. I know that Of all the work. But out of solidarity, I will say learnings is a death sentence.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I'm I no longer have to exit you because the but when you, I I I actually I just exit doesn't bother me. I probably should. But the, so, yeah, learning starts me not so as performing, but I I'm I'm I'm tolerant of exit. And when this CEO was exited, it was done in a way where their shares voted.
Speaker 2:Management, be sure you do this. So be sure that when you know, everything is kinda negotiable when you're in that moment where you're like, okay. That this person and, you know, it's at that moment, like, everybody wants to turn the page when you're getting I'm not talking about the Albin situation. I'm talking about, like, we've got the wrong person in here. We need to get we actually don't even know who the right person is.
Speaker 2:We just need to get this person out. And but yet, that's really important that you get a lot of this stuff negotiated. And it's important that you figure a bunch of this stuff out, and the board's gonna have to pay for some of this stuff. But these are things that are really important to assure the the organization. The organization is the one that needs to survive.
Speaker 2:And then So
Speaker 4:my my favorite part of this OpenAI thing was, you know, before any of the, the CEO shenanigans came out, there was this tender offer, you know, valuing the company at $86,000,000,000 with a B tender offer to employees to sell their shares, which on its face is already crazy. Like, every in fact, a friend of mine told me this, and I was convinced that they were wrong. I convinced that they they had been confused about something just because it made no sense to me. Now my favorite thing about everything that's transpired is apparently the deal is still on the table and all of this has not moved the price. One penny, it's still $86,000,000,000 It's not worth more.
Speaker 4:It's not worth less. It the price is still the price despite everything that has transpired, and and that, I just think, is so remarkable.
Speaker 2:It is. It's like, no, the price hasn't moved. I mean, it moved Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, the same team. For sure.
Speaker 2:Stronger board.
Speaker 4:Briefly, it went down to 0. Sure. But now it's back, and it's not back to a different number. It's back to exactly the same number.
Speaker 2:Exactly the same number. Well, I think everyone just, like, can we please just pretend that all of this never happened? And That's
Speaker 4:right. It's amnesia, right? For sure.
Speaker 2:I think it is. I I think there's a level, and this is one of the things that was kind of interesting about this whole, like, terrible dynamic. It felt like at some level, all parties wanted to actually get the genie back in the bottle. Like, everyone I I mean, you you you gotta think that, like, the belligerence here realized this was not the way to do this. Like, this I if you wanted to get Altman out, like, this is not you you this is not the way to do it.
Speaker 2:And if you wanted to make it, you know, to Chuck's earlier point, if you wanted to, make it more open or, I mean, I I don't give any speculation about what this is actually about. I mean, I I know that we're we've said not spec. Right? Then here we go. But
Speaker 4:Yeah. You know, I unfortunately, I think I'm I I feel like there's the AI doomers might have something to do with it. That is to say, some of the board members got wrapped around the axle on on some or maybe they like watched the most recent, Mission Impossible and decided that the omniscient AI was here. And that's the thing about which Altman was not being perfectly candid.
Speaker 2:That the light code demanded. This is like AI baby Hitler, and they had to, like, knife it in the cradle?
Speaker 4:Yeah. But, apparently, they lost their nerve and and couldn't finish it off or whatever. And, well, Abby, what do you think? Like, do you do you have I mean, feel like every guess is outlandish, but Every guess is outlandish.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, and I was, like, definitely very dismissive of that early on. I'm like, it cannot like, there's no way you would have this kind of, like, abstract disagreement over the future of AI. But then you had this whole q star thing. What do you make of that?
Speaker 2:Did you follow that?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is Q Star is some amazing breakthrough that the margin of the web page, you know, does not have space to contain. You know?
Speaker 2:Yes. Thank you. Tripping over one another to make the so I would does everyone make the formal reference as frequently as you and I do, Adam? I love that reference.
Speaker 4:You know what? It seems unlikely, if I'm honest.
Speaker 2:So this is So we'll have we'll have
Speaker 4:a we'll have a footnote to that in the
Speaker 2:in the We'll have a footnote to this, but this is it's it's Pierre de Fermat. Right? It's the, the Pierre de Fermat who developed, Fermat's theorem, from law's little theorem and from law's last theorem and famously said I have a truly marvelous proof to this that this margin is too small to contain and then died. Or the Yeah. Or or at least
Speaker 4:never wrote it down.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Never wrote it down. And the the kind of the consensus is that Fermat did not have that proof, that Fermat's proof would have been flawed, that he had a a simple but flawed proof, a truly marvelous but also flawed proof. But we actually don't know that. Right.
Speaker 2:And did you did you have did you did you have, professor Hofstien at school, Adam?
Speaker 4:I did. I did, in fact.
Speaker 2:Did did you so you had so I this is a a prop that you and I shared of of although across a number of generations. And I had the privilege of having a I took number theory from him, and sorry for the diversion. I took number theory from him in the spring of 1993. And, you know, Hofstien is a, like, he's alive wired, that guy. I mean, I I really liked him.
Speaker 2:He's he's a little nuts. He was super nuts.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Totally nuts.
Speaker 2:In a way that is, like, delightful, but also a little scary. And he wrote Fermat's last theorem on the board, and he's like, This is true. Fermat's proof was flawed. We don't know what it was. We can't prove it.
Speaker 4:And this is 93 he's doing it. That's great.
Speaker 2:It's 93. He's like, we cannot prove it. And if there's ever a proof to Fermat's last theorem, I'm jumping to my death from the science library. And he was like, It's like what I felt like a lot of unnecessary, like, detail.
Speaker 4:Well, spoiler, like, I took a class from him in, like, 2,000 or something. So
Speaker 2:Okay. And he was like, the way that he looked yeah. It was you.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Like, noticeably alive.
Speaker 2:Yes. Noticeably alive. Yeah. So it's like, and then it was in the, it was in the summer of 93 that wiles had his proof for boss. I'm like, has anyone done a welfare check on Jeffrey Jeffrey Hofstede?
Speaker 2:I mean, like, the guy was extremely explicit that he was going to jump to his death, his words, if there was a proof. And actually, I I did I saw him in the fall, very much alive, and I did I, I, I asked him about this, and I asked him about like, what do you make? And he's like, wow, this proof is gonna be flawed. There's gonna be a flaw in it. And then there was a flaw in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then, of course, the flaw. And and it what is a truly singular act of human resilience whilst fixes the flaw. And but I think that with that that Hopfstein has got the the angle on that. I mean, we can say with absolute certainty that whilst this proof is not the one that Fermat's margin was too small to contain.
Speaker 2:I think we That's right. Wiles' proof
Speaker 4:is Apparently, the branch I I don't know the details, but branches of math that had not been explored at all in that area. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It seems that I I'm likely that. But I feel like you and I, you make that reference, that this is, like, something that is that so q star, I I it was just funny that you said that because I felt the exact same way. I've got a truly marvelous breakthrough in artificial general intelligence that that this march is too small to contain. It's kind of my view on QStar, but maybe we're too jaundiced.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Good. Show me. I don't know. That'd be great.
Speaker 4:Or I'll be enslaved to it either way.
Speaker 2:Or, or, or we, we're gonna all, we're gonna fight for the light cone together. I thought we'd run the,
Speaker 1:that's right.
Speaker 4:The right Lakeland reservists.
Speaker 2:Yes. The the like, on the service. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 4:Reserved that domain name already.
Speaker 1:I did not follow the the q star stuff closely, but apparently, that is what led Ilya to we don't construct the code.
Speaker 2:The this is the kind of thing that is the narrative that is This is the this is one of the narratives that's out there is that this thing q star was developed. It was just this unbelievable breakthrough that is this huge step function.
Speaker 1:Too big of a breakthrough.
Speaker 2:Too big of exactly. Too big of a breakthrough. And humanity is just not ready for it, so we're gonna fire Sam Altman, and basically because
Speaker 1:he'll take it and work it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, also, he'll take he'd like, hey, OpenAI board. Next time you wanna fire a CEO, have a chat gbt write the press release. Kind of wish that would have run a better press release. No question.
Speaker 4:And then do it again, but say, as if you were a lawyer.
Speaker 2:As if you were a lawyer, the the write a fire the CEO, and it's gonna be I mean, it will absolutely I mean, the and, you know, someone in the chat is saying, if this wasn't so ludicrous, I'd say it was a PR stunt. I mean, it was. It's like, it feels like brilliant one. Oh, man. It'll be next level.
Speaker 2:It's like, god. We really hooked you on that. Didn't we? But there's a little bit, and I think I mean, I do feel that, you know, if you all at OpenAI feel that you are developing something that affects the future of humanity, and you can't figure out the most basic elements of board dynamics. Like, do we have the right people in charge?
Speaker 2:We humans, does does humanity have the right people in charge? So I I yeah. I don't know. We'll we'll see. So what what I think we got some I I don't know.
Speaker 2:Steve, what was your, got on I I mean, I'll tell you that, like, I think they hate one of those guts. That's what I think it is. Yeah. I'll just be I I
Speaker 4:Do you think it's like Sam, like, was a colossal asshole to some or all of them? Yes. They're like,
Speaker 2:and You know, and I think enough. And I think that they think that they I I think that they were, probably a little, probably felt that Sam was representing all of OpenAI probably too frequently. And the guy is the CEO, though, so I'm not feels like he's got the Feels reasonable. Feels like none. Seems
Speaker 4:like the job description, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:He's like it's in the job description, but I think that they, I mean, just like I feel like in some of the language too that, like, oh, you know, he's constantly he's, you know, he's so next level in his manipulate manipulation of us that he's manipulating me right now into thinking that I can't think of a specific example.
Speaker 1:But, again, if if if that's it and then you move to hastily fire him based on that, that there's there's consequences.
Speaker 2:There's consequences. Unfortunately, it is and there are gonna be I think that there will be some consequences for some of those folks. I do think that, like and I I hope the the positive consequence should be that everyone should be really thinking about the importance of board governance. I think, Adam, you had a very good concrete suggestion of, you know, when you take a job, when you're in a company, what's the what's the board structure? And ask that question, and what's, you know, what's their background?
Speaker 2:And how does this work and who controls the company? Not that you're, you know, as an employee of a company, you don't necessarily affect it, but it's good for you to know. And I think that the and and then I think you also wanna look at what the the what is the relationship between the leadership and the board, and what is their, I I think it's important to, you know, the the what you put in front of the board, you should be putting in front of the company. I think it's actually, and that that's not always comfortable because, you know, you've got sometimes you're putting, you know, you you're putting bad news in front of one of those groups that you might not wanna talk about. But I think it's like you're you wanna get everyone on the same page about the bad news and the good news.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then I think the the other bit I do think that the and, you know, saying this in the chat too. Like, the the power struggle between the nonprofit and the commercial entity, the way this thing is structured is super goddamn weird, and I do think that the structure of it avoids structures like this. This is not a this is a very, very, very strange structure.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I don't know what, like, a capped profit entity is. It's the first time I've heard of such a thing, but it sounds complicated.
Speaker 2:And wasn't the like, the the the profit cap is, like, ludicrously high.
Speaker 4:Yeah. It sounds like infinity $1,000,000,000
Speaker 2:to us. Infinity $1,000,000,000. No. It's capped at infinity 1,000,000,000. Like, the next infinity billion you get.
Speaker 2:I'm like, this
Speaker 4:is like metal goes to on Earth to the chair.
Speaker 2:Like, a big lava thing. Like, wait a minute. Is this gonna be the walled inspector thing again? Because I I wanna put my money back.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we will wait for the next, the the next episode. I don't think this one is completely done. I would say the other thing I I would also recommend on in addition to checking out Mike Olson's talk, I think that if you just reading historically about companies, it's like there there's a lot of boardroom battles that are pretty interesting in terms of, like, the board composition really matters in all in companies. So, the, it it certainly
Speaker 1:barbarian
Speaker 2:Barbarian's the gate. Yeah. Yeah. I barbarians. Have you heard barbarians of the game, Adam?
Speaker 4:You know, I have, but I think it's been 20 years.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's a it was probably worth a reread. It is worth a reread. It's it's very good. Same
Speaker 1:bug. I've read it for a while. I reread it.
Speaker 2:And and I will also then put in a plug for, IBM and the Holocaust, which I just just finished. Edwin Black, very good book. Much of that book is actually boardroom struggles, because it is the the control of this German subsidiary, Dayomak, and the kind of the battle over that. And there is a bunch of like, they are are constantly doing things being, like, actually, that board meeting in which you awarded yourself that is not an actual board meeting because you didn't have quorum or because you didn't you there's there there's a lot of, and certainly, you get into, like, 19th century. You get like, the boardroom is is where these things are happening.
Speaker 2:So it's it's very, it's a very important stuff.
Speaker 4:And next week.
Speaker 2:Next week? Yeah. You're talking about next week? So, yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 4:Yeah. We got Nirav Patel from Framework Computer, building cool laptops that are serviceable, and you can take them apart and put them together. Brian, you just got yours. I've had one. Actually, I say I've had one, but actually my older son stole it from me almost immediately.
Speaker 4:But it's a great box with a lot of shared philosophy. So really looking with oxides, so really looking forward to that conversation next week.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to the the framework folks. Yeah. This is a this is a kindred spirit.
Speaker 2:I like having our, I I I like having our our kindred spirits out there. Got similar, views for what compute should be and doing a lot of of, Rust from our team. So Yeah. Really neat stuff. And I'd I'd as as, a 172 saying in the chat, it's not often that we get one new computer company, let alone 2.
Speaker 2:You know, we get Yeah. New new computer companies. So fun stuff. And I'm sure the OpenAI board will change to 6 times between now and then. It's been a week.
Speaker 2:It's
Speaker 4:right. That's a safe prediction.
Speaker 2:So Exactly. Alright. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next time.