Over six months Sam Altman was fired, and later rehired, one of OpenAI's former board members is finally spilling the beans on what happened behind closed doors. Helen Donner, one of the four people who fired OpenAI's CEO, said Altman's relentless lying created a toxic culture that executives described as « psychological abuse. »
In his first long-form interview since Sam Altman's firing, Donner says Dead AI show In October 2023, executives came to the OpenAI board with serious allegations against the company's CEO. According to Donner, two executives told Altman they couldn't be trusted and showed the board screenshots of Altman's manipulation and lying. These executives reportedly had no faith that Altman could or would be replaced, and their testimony led the board to fire the CEO a few weeks later. The interview, published on Tuesday, comes after weeks of public backlash against OpenAI, where the company's veracity Questioned by Scarlett Johansson and former employees.
« For any individual case, Sam could always come up with some kind of innocuous-sounding explanation of why it wasn't a big deal or why it was misunderstood or whatever, » Donner said in the interview. « After things like this, the four of us who fired him came to the conclusion that we couldn't believe the things Sam was telling us. »
But according to Donner, the writing was on the wall about Altman's lying for years. He says the board was not informed in advance when ChatGPT came out in November 2022 and « learned about ChatGPT on Twitter ». Donner also noted that Altman misrepresented security processes at OpenAI. Donner claims Altman lied to other team members to get him fired after he wrote a research paper that spoke negatively about OpenAI's security practices just weeks before he was fired.
In the end, Donner says, OpenAI's board members didn't tell anyone other than its legal team that they were trying to fire Altman because they knew the CEO would try to undermine them if they caught wind of it. But Altman after all this A few days later he came back as CEO95% of companies have signed an open letter to reinstate him.
Donner says it was presented to employees at the company as a black-and-white decision: either bring Altman back or OpenAI will be destroyed. According to Donner, the company's security and valuation are critical because OpenAI employees will make a lot of money from their stake in the $86 billion company through a tender offer a few months later.
« The second thing to be aware of, which is really under-reported, is how much people are afraid of Sam, » Donner said. « They experienced his vendetta against people for criticizing them in the past. They were truly afraid of what would happen to them.
Lastly, Donner noted that Altman is not the first company to run into this issue. Altman was fired from Y Combinator in 2019, brought up by a former OpenAI board member. The Washington Post This was followed by his removal from OpenAI. Donner also said the management team at Altman's first startup, Loopt, twice went to the company's board and asked to fire Altman for « deceptive and disruptive behavior. »
Donner, Tasha McCauley, Ilya Sutzkever and Adam D'Angelo were the team members responsible for firing Sam Altman last November. When Altman returned to power later that month, Donner and Macaulay immediately left the OpenAI team. ChutScaver just announced His departure this monthOpenAI's office has reportedly been absent for about six months.
In response to these sensational allegations, the podcast included a response from OpenAI's team leader, Brett Taylor. « We are disappointed that Ms. Donner continues to revisit these issues, » Taylor said, later citing an independent investigation into the issues by law firm Wilmer Hale. « The review concluded that the board's decision was not based on product safety or security, the speed of development, OpenAI's funding or reports to investors, customers or business partners. »
The interview comes after weeks of turmoil for OpenAI, where the company's credibility has come increasingly into the public eye. OpenAI has also come under criticism Harsh exit agreements that confuse ex-employees and threatening to withdraw their shares (the company has withdrawn these deals in light of public protests). At last, OpenAI looked The departure of many high-profile AI security researchers, many sounded a warning note about the company as they left. Six months after the Altman firing debacle, OpenAI's trust issues don't seem to be going away anytime soon.
