NYT Investigates Sam Altman's Management Conduct

An in-depth New York Times investigation into Sam Altman's management style and OpenAI's credibility issues.

The Truth Behind the 2023 Firing

• Ilya Sutskever led the firing after gathering evidence (about 70 pages of Slack messages and HR documents) that Altman had repeatedly lied to the board and colleagues.
• Behind Altman's return just 5 days after being fired were Microsoft's threat to poach staff and a movement among employees to resign en masse.

Past Conduct and a Recurring Pattern

• Even during his time at Loopt, he had a tendency to exaggerate facts, and at Y Combinator as well, he clashed with partners over conflicts between his personal investments and the fund's interests.

The Gap Between OpenAI's Founding Mission and Reality

• The nonprofit principle of prioritizing humanity's safety above all has been weakened by the partnership with Microsoft and a profit-driven structure.
• The Superalignment team, dedicated to safety research, was ultimately disbanded after receiving only a fraction (1-2%) of the promised compute resources.