Concerning. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a group fall into the pitfall of “wow, this guy is amazing at accumulating power for us, this is going great—oh whoops, now he holds absolute control and might do bad things with it”.
Altman probably has good motivations, but even so, this is worrying. “One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp with too much force is to be taken over by power, thus becoming its victim” to quote the Bene Gesserit.
(Glances at investor’s agreement...)
If it turns out that the investors actually have the ability to influence OpenAI’s leadership, it means the structure has failed. That itself would be a good reason for most of its support to disappear, and for its (ideologically motivated) employees to leave. This situation may put the organization in a bit of a conundrum.
The structure was also supposed to function for some future where OpenAI has a tremendous amount of power, to guarantee in advance that OpenAI would not be forced to use that power for profit. The implication about whether Microsoft expects to be able to influence the decision is itself a significant hit to OpenAI.