Someone in your company gets fired by a boss you don’t know/particularly like without giving any reason
You are mad with the boss and want the decision overturned
You have a credible, attractive BATNA (the Microsoft offer)
These 3 items seem like they would be sufficient to cause something like the Open Letter to happen.
In most cases number 3 is not present which I think is why we don’t see things like this happen more often in more organisations.
None of this requires Sam to be hugely likeable or a particularly savvy political operator, just that people generally like him. People seem to suggest he was one or both so this just makes the letter more likely.
I’m sure this doesn’t explain it all in OpenAI’s case—some/many employees would also have been worried about AI safety which complicates the decision—but I suspect it is the underlying story.
Someone in your company gets fired by a boss you don’t know/particularly like without giving any reason
You are mad with the boss and want the decision overturned
You have a credible, attractive BATNA (the Microsoft offer)
These 3 items seem like they would be sufficient to cause something like the Open Letter to happen.
In most cases number 3 is not present which I think is why we don’t see things like this happen more often in more organisations.
None of this requires Sam to be hugely likeable or a particularly savvy political operator, just that people generally like him. People seem to suggest he was one or both so this just makes the letter more likely.
I’m sure this doesn’t explain it all in OpenAI’s case—some/many employees would also have been worried about AI safety which complicates the decision—but I suspect it is the underlying story.