<story><title>OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/18/23967199/breaking-openai-board-in-discussions-with-sam-altman-to-return-as-ceo</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>soufron</author><text>But what about the legal responsability of Microsoft and investors there?&lt;p&gt;To explain, it&amp;#x27;s the board of the non-profit that ousted @sama
.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is not a member of the non-profit.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is &amp;quot;only&amp;quot; a shareholder of its for-profit subsidiary - even for 10B.&lt;p&gt;Basically, what happened is a change of control in the non-profit majority shareholder of a company Microsoft invested in.&lt;p&gt;But not a change of control in the for-profit company they invested in.&lt;p&gt;To tell the truth, I am not even certain the board of the non-profit would have been legally allowed to discuss the issue with Microsoft at all - it&amp;#x27;s an internal issue only and that would be a conflict of interest.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is not happy with that change of control and they favourited the previous representative of their partner.&lt;p&gt;Basically Microsoft want their shareholder non-profit partner to prioritize their interest over its own.&lt;p&gt;And to do that, they are trying to impede on its governance, even threatening it with disorganization, lawsuits and such.&lt;p&gt;This sounds like highly unethical and potentially illegal to me.&lt;p&gt;How come no one is pointing that out?&lt;p&gt;Also, how come a 90 billion dollars company hailed as the future of computing and a major transformative force for society would now be valued 0 dollars only because its non-technical founder is now out?&lt;p&gt;What does it say about the seriousness of it all?&lt;p&gt;But of course, that&amp;#x27;s Silicon Valley baby.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jprete</author><text>I think a lot of commenters here are treating the nonprofit as if it were a temporary disguise with no other relevance, which OpenAI now intends to shed so it can rake in the profits. Legally this is very much not true, and I’ve read that only a minority of the board can even be a stakeholder in the for-profit (probably why Altman is always described as having no stake). If that’s true, it’s very obviously why half the board are outside people with no stake in the finances at all.</text></comment>
<story><title>OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/18/23967199/breaking-openai-board-in-discussions-with-sam-altman-to-return-as-ceo</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>soufron</author><text>But what about the legal responsability of Microsoft and investors there?&lt;p&gt;To explain, it&amp;#x27;s the board of the non-profit that ousted @sama
.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is not a member of the non-profit.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is &amp;quot;only&amp;quot; a shareholder of its for-profit subsidiary - even for 10B.&lt;p&gt;Basically, what happened is a change of control in the non-profit majority shareholder of a company Microsoft invested in.&lt;p&gt;But not a change of control in the for-profit company they invested in.&lt;p&gt;To tell the truth, I am not even certain the board of the non-profit would have been legally allowed to discuss the issue with Microsoft at all - it&amp;#x27;s an internal issue only and that would be a conflict of interest.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is not happy with that change of control and they favourited the previous representative of their partner.&lt;p&gt;Basically Microsoft want their shareholder non-profit partner to prioritize their interest over its own.&lt;p&gt;And to do that, they are trying to impede on its governance, even threatening it with disorganization, lawsuits and such.&lt;p&gt;This sounds like highly unethical and potentially illegal to me.&lt;p&gt;How come no one is pointing that out?&lt;p&gt;Also, how come a 90 billion dollars company hailed as the future of computing and a major transformative force for society would now be valued 0 dollars only because its non-technical founder is now out?&lt;p&gt;What does it say about the seriousness of it all?&lt;p&gt;But of course, that&amp;#x27;s Silicon Valley baby.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nojvek</author><text>No one is saying they are now valued at 0.&lt;p&gt;They are likely valued a lot less than 80 billion now.&lt;p&gt;OpenAI had the largest multiple - &amp;gt;100X their revenue for a recent startup.&lt;p&gt;That multiple is a lot smaller now without SamA.&lt;p&gt;Honestly the market needs a correction.</text></comment>