John Loeber writes essays on tech, AI governance, politics, and software markets, including OpenAI's board and browser extensions.
Commenters call it a good substack, citing its clear arguments on EU fines against US tech and on browser extensions as an under-appreciated market.
I agree with that. Government officials and politicians should have effectively no conflicts of interest because they have no real way to seek valid approval from the electorate for them.
For companies, if you have investors, employees, and (implicitly, because they continue to do business with you) customers all supportive of someone remaining in their position in spite of real or potential conflicts of interest then I think it's reasonable to say those are acceptable — and certainly not unethical — conflicts of interest.
The board deserves and has the right to a say, of course, but the extent to which it can justify a position that goes against those other groups is at best debatable even if they are not wholly comfortable with said conflicts. After all, the board should serve the company (customers, employees, shareholders/investors) and not itself. This [1] timeline of OpenAI board changes also seems to suggest some level of opportunism, and the possibility that at other times, or had departing members been replaced, it may not have been possible to get board consensus for firing Sam, either.
[1] https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board
Apparently an indirect association. From [0]:
Fall 2021
Holden Karnofsky resigns from the Board, citing a potential conflict because his wife, Daniela Amodei, is helping start Anthropic, a major OpenAI competitor, with her brother Dario Amodei. (They all live(d) together.) The exact date of Holden’s resignation is unknown; there was no contemporaneous press release.
Between October and November 2021, Holden was quietly removed from the list of Board Directors on the OpenAI website, and Helen was added (Discussion Source [1]).
0. https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board
1. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fmDFytmxwX9qBgcaX/why-aren-t-you-freaking-out-about-openai-at-what-point-would?commentId=KavuL7Q5qdvxoYSsd
> Adam D’Angelo is working on ChatGPT competitor Poe.
> Helen Toner & Tasha McCauley are working with OpenPhilanthropy/Anthropic on GovAI board (former board member Holden Karnofsky left when his wife started to get involved with Anthropic)
These seem like much larger conflicts of interest (working with direct competitors) than working on a company that one day this company might want to purchase a product from.
The board was anemic, lost people and didn’t replace them, and then was small enough that you could fire the chairman of the board and then remove the CEO in a friday night massacre.
https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board
I based that opinion on two news that came out:
1. When they invested in Open AI it had a more mature board (in particular Reid Hoffman) and afterwards they lost a few members without replacing them. That was probably something Microsoft could have influenced without making themselves part of the problem.
2. They received a call one minute before the decision was made public. That shouldn't happen to a partner that owns 49% of the company you just fired a CEO from.
Sources:
1 - https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board
2 - https://www.axios.com/2023/11/17/microsoft-openai-sam-altman-ouster
Given the drama on the board, seems like it would be best to reset it.
The board members that voted Sam out had conflicts of interest. With the board not being fully staffed, it seems like a few that were left suddenly had too much power, too much conflicting interest, and really shouldn't have been allowed to make such sweeping changes.
Like their should have been some board rules on filling positions before allowing firing a CEO or some other guard rails.
https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38330158
There was a good article from John Loeber a few months back about browser extensions: https://loeber.substack.com/p/9-15-years-of-market-gaps-for-browsers
He had the same point, where it feels like browser extensions are a big, somehow under-appreciated market. Browsers are huge platforms -- creating add-ons and making them more capable should be a popular, value-generating thing to do! But for a number of (developer) UX/UI issues, that just hasn't been the case. I hope this changes!