> The only problem with this account is the idea that Ilya thought he could persuade the people of the evils of Sam. Did he? As far as I can tell, absolutely no one tried to make a case for firing Altman. There was some vague hand-wavey bullshit about their "mission", but absolutely nothing in the way of a press offensive or even telling Altman himself why he was getting the sack. My best guess is that the board are comically stupid, and they figured that invoking their mission would cease all debate about whether this was a good idea. Maybe because there is some angst about the impact of AI on society in the press or something, and they figured they'd draft off of that. Then of course it came out that they had basically no good reason to fire Altman. Then that they wanted him back. Then that Microsoft were fuming. Then that their own employees were threatening to resign en masse. Then Altman joining Microsoft, with what is almost certainly a blessing to poach whoever he wants from OpenAI. This board basically just sold their enterprise to Microsoft for $0. What a total pack of clowns.