0:00

Casey, where are you right now? Okay, first

0:02

of all, you have to stop calling me, Kevin. I'm trying to be on vacation

0:05

over here. I'm literally in the middle

0:07

of gate E8 at San Francisco International

0:10

Airport. Is

0:13

it loud there? How are you recording this? It's

0:15

surprisingly quiet, but only because my flight just

0:17

got canceled. No! What

0:20

happened? Well, step

0:23

one was they were waiting on some paperwork.

0:26

Step two was they opened up some sort of compartment and

0:28

they said that they needed to replace a broken latch, and

0:30

then during that

0:30

process, they announced that something was cracked and

0:33

they were taking the airplane out of service.

0:36

So the best option

0:38

for us was to hop on and chat

0:40

while we wait for our next plane to

0:42

arrive. And that's how my Thanksgiving's going so far. Oh my God, I'm so sorry

0:45

that happened to you. Well, it— How's your

0:47

holiday going so far? Well, I would say

0:49

it's been very relaxing. I've

0:51

just been spending, you know, quiet

0:54

afternoons, you know, reading books and

0:56

catching up on sleep. And

0:58

of course, I have been in a frenzy

1:00

of

1:00

reporting and trying to figure

1:03

out what the heck is going on behind all this drama.

1:05

This is a sort of triumphal return of Sam

1:07

Altman and some OpenAI employees

1:10

have been saying things like, we are so back.

1:13

Well, before we get into the aftermath,

1:16

Kevin, we should probably just quickly tell

1:18

folks who may not have heard what happened

1:20

since last week came to them in an emergency

1:22

podcast just hours ago. I

1:25

feel like this week has just been one never-ending

1:28

emergency podcast. I

1:30

feel like we have

1:30

really not stopped recording since Friday.

1:33

But basically, here's the deal. Late

1:36

Tuesday, OpenAI announced that

1:38

Sam Altman was being brought

1:41

back after this five-day campaign

1:44

that had been waged by Sam

1:46

and his allies, OpenAI's

1:48

employees who had threatened to quit en

1:50

masse and go work at Microsoft, as

1:52

well as the company's investors. They

1:55

said they had a quote, agreement in principle

1:57

for Sam Altman to return.

1:59

and that they were overhauling

2:02

the company's board of directors. So Adam

2:04

DiAngelo, who is the chief

2:07

executive of Quora and was one of the

2:09

board directors who had voted to fire

2:12

Sam Altman, is staying on, but

2:14

he is the only member of that board who

2:16

is staying on. Helen Toner and

2:18

Tasha McCauley, two of the other board members

2:21

who voted to fire Sam Altman, are

2:23

leaving the board, and two new

2:25

people are joining to replace them.

2:28

Brett Taylor, who is an early Facebook

2:30

executive and former executive

2:32

of Salesforce, is coming onto

2:34

the board. He will be the new chairman, and

2:37

Larry Summers, the former Treasury

2:40

Secretary, is also coming

2:42

onto the board. So Casey, what was your reaction

2:44

to this news? I mean, on one

2:46

hand, it was very surprising,

2:49

given that there had been a few failed attempts to

2:51

return Sam to this position so far.

2:54

On the other hand, though, I think by

2:56

the time this happened, Kevin, this really

2:59

was inevitable. And there was one particular

3:01

detail I read in some reporting

3:03

that I want to share right now, and this was the moment where

3:05

I thought there is no way Sam Altman doesn't come back

3:07

to this board. Can I just share this with you? Yes, please. So

3:10

this is from a story written by Kichage

3:12

Deepasitha Raman and Berber Gin at the Wall Street

3:14

Journal, and in their piece on the matter, they said,

3:17

and this is, of course, as the board is discussing

3:19

the situation with some supporters for

3:22

Sam Altman, and this is the quote,

3:24

the board agreed to discuss the matter with their council after

3:26

a few hours, they returned, still unwilling

3:28

to provide specifics. Specifics in this case

3:31

about why Altman was fired. The story goes

3:33

on. They said that Altman wasn't candid and often

3:35

got his way. The board said that Altman

3:37

had been so deft, they couldn't even give

3:39

a specific example, according to the people

3:42

familiar with the executives. So

3:45

when the people who were trying to get Sam

3:47

back asked the board, hey, no,

3:49

seriously, why did you fire this guy? Their

3:52

answer was he's so good at being

3:54

bad, we can't even tell you what he did bad. And

3:56

that was the moment where I thought, this man is going to

3:58

be CEO of this company again. Yeah,

4:00

that's a good observation. And it dovetails

4:03

with some reporting that my colleagues and I have been

4:05

doing at the Times about

4:07

why Sam Altman was fired and about

4:10

some of the conflicts between him

4:12

and the board that have been going on

4:14

for a while now. In particular, this

4:16

conflict between Sam Altman and Helen

4:18

Toner, one of the board members who

4:21

is departing over this academic

4:23

paper that she had written

4:25

that sort of drew attention to open

4:28

AI in a negative light. And

4:30

Sam Altman was upset about this.

4:33

And this is sort of part of what sparked

4:35

the disagreement between him and the

4:37

sort of Helen Toner faction of the board.

4:40

But obviously, you're right, we still don't know exactly

4:43

what the trigger was for

4:45

firing Sam Altman. But it seems

4:47

to have been vague enough or

4:49

unconvincing enough that the faction

4:51

of the board that wanted to push him out was not able to

4:54

stand their ground. And ultimately,

4:56

in these bargaining sessions, they agreed

4:59

to bring him back in exchange for certain

5:01

changes to the company's governance. That's

5:04

right. I do think that that that dispute

5:06

that you mentioned is important to spend

5:08

another beat on the right because I do

5:10

think that the entire conflict is contained

5:13

in this story. Open AI is, of course,

5:15

famously a nonprofit board

5:18

that runs a for profit company. Helen

5:20

represented the nonprofit board. Sam,

5:22

his duty is to the nonprofit, right?

5:25

He is hired essentially by the nonprofit.

5:27

But I also think that his loyalties

5:30

have been much more to the sort of commercial

5:32

corporate side of the venture, at least as

5:34

this most recent drama has been playing

5:37

out. And the paper that Helen co-wrote

5:39

was a paper in part about AI safety.

5:41

And the thing that she and her co-authors

5:44

wrote was that Open AI's rival,

5:47

Anthropic, which is of course co-founded by a bunch of former

5:49

Open AI people, they wrote that

5:51

Anthropic had essentially built their product more safely

5:53

than Open AI had. And so you

5:56

can understand why in Sam's

5:58

mind, that was a betrayal. But you

6:00

can also understand why in Helen's mind

6:03

that was just her doing her job. Her job is to make

6:05

sure that AI gets built in the safest

6:07

manner possible. Her job is not to protect the

6:09

reputation of open AI. And

6:12

so that appears to be where the schism

6:14

was. And even if that wasn't the trigger for why Sam got

6:16

fired, I think it tells you a lot about what happened over the past

6:19

week. Yeah. So we'll see who gets

6:21

added to the board in the coming days.

6:23

This is not the final composition

6:25

for the board. Are you throwing your hat in the ring, by the way, Kevin? I

6:29

will not serve if elected. This company

6:31

has already cost me too much sleep. So

6:34

it remains to be seen who will end up on the final

6:37

version of the board. This is sort of being seen

6:39

and portrayed as an interim board that's just

6:42

there to kind of sort things out and ultimately

6:44

decide who should be on

6:46

the nonprofit board going forward. But

6:48

I would say a couple things. One

6:51

is Microsoft is definitely

6:53

going to have a bigger hand in the governance

6:56

of open AI going forward. When

6:58

Microsoft did this deal with open AI

7:00

investing billions of dollars in the company, they

7:03

were kind of a passive investor,

7:05

right? They did not have a seat on

7:07

the board. They were not making

7:09

the decisions about the future of this company,

7:12

even though this company and its technology have become

7:14

very important to Microsoft's future business

7:17

plans. The best joke I heard about that, by the way, was

7:19

from Matt Levine, who wrote something like Microsoft

7:21

invested in a nonprofit at a valuation of $80 billion.

7:25

Yeah. So

7:27

Microsoft obviously will

7:29

want to ensure that something like this

7:31

doesn't happen again, that its investment

7:34

in open AI is not sort of jeopardized

7:37

by this nonprofit board. And so I expect that

7:39

they will want a board seat going forward. And

7:42

the bigger picture here, I think, and

7:44

this is something that I've been writing about today, is

7:46

that this war in AI

7:49

between sort of the capitalists and

7:51

the catastrophists. That's catchy.

7:54

Yeah, thank you. So there are people who think that

7:56

AI is going to be a powerful business tool

7:58

and the people who worry that it's going to take

8:01

over the world and destroy humanity. That

8:03

war, I think, as of now, is

8:06

over. The capitalists have won. The

8:08

people who are now in charge of the board of OpenAI

8:11

are the kind of seasoned deal makers

8:13

and Silicon Valley insiders that you would expect

8:16

to govern a for-profit technology

8:18

company. They are not these kind of academics

8:21

and ideologues who worry that AI

8:24

could become too powerful and need to be

8:26

shut down. And I think that's mostly the

8:28

way that things are going to be from here on out. Certainly

8:31

I think the pro-safety people have lost

8:34

their most important perch

8:36

that they had on any sort of power in

8:38

the circumstance at all. At the same time, there

8:41

is a faction throughout the government,

8:43

academia, in journalism, and within

8:46

the industry itself that wants to build this technology in

8:48

a safe way. So I don't think that disappears, but

8:50

you're right, it did lose a lot of power. I think Mike's

8:52

sort of wrapping up question for you, Kevin, is how

8:55

much do you think this changes OpenAI? Is

8:57

it the case that Monday morning rolls around and

9:00

it is just back to business as usual for these

9:02

folks? Or do you think that this

9:05

crazy series of events will have affected

9:07

Sam and the company in some profound

9:09

way that might change what we expect to see from them going forward?

9:13

It's hard to say. I was talking to some

9:15

OpenAI employees who were

9:17

going back to the office to celebrate.

9:19

They were having a party at the office. I

9:22

did not get invited to that party, but I was

9:24

hearing dispatches from inside of it. And at one

9:26

point, the fire alarm of the

9:29

OpenAI offices was set off by

9:31

a fog machine in case you

9:33

want to do sort of a vibe check on how people at

9:35

the company are feeling right now. They are very

9:38

happy. They are celebrating. They

9:40

are bonded. Nothing bonds

9:42

people together like going through a crisis. There's

9:45

a lot of... Like the one we're having right now where I'm recording

9:47

an emergency episode in the airport? It's

9:49

true. I've never felt less of it. I'm going

9:52

to be honest with you right now, Casey.

9:54

The people I'm talking to, they think that this

9:56

is going to be a real moment of reinvigoration

9:59

for the company. that employees

10:02

are feeling optimistic about the

10:04

future and they are now

10:06

even more devoted to this mission of building

10:09

AGI. And obviously

10:12

I think there are going to be some people

10:14

who come out ahead or behind

10:17

of this kind of reorganized, reconstituted

10:20

open AI. And there's a lot of questions

10:22

we still don't know the answers to about how

10:24

the company will change going forward. But

10:26

I think if you're looking for a sort

10:28

of clear before and after picture of open

10:31

AI, I would say before there was

10:33

this sense that there was this fragile structure

10:36

that needed to be sort of balanced, the needs

10:38

of the business and the needs of the nonprofit.

10:41

And now I think people feel like the

10:43

business is firmly in the driver's seat. That

10:46

all sounds right to me. I think the one thing I would add

10:48

is that I do think the company and Sam Altman

10:50

in particular are just going to be under more scrutiny

10:52

now, right? We all learned a lot about

10:54

the history of this company and of Sam

10:57

Altman in particular over the past week.

10:59

And I think to the extent that the company makes

11:01

moves that are perceived as sort of pro

11:04

corporate, pro Microsoft and anti-safety,

11:07

I just think they're going to get 10 times the attention that they

11:09

did before all of this happened. And

11:11

that might be a good thing, right? So at

11:13

the end of the day, I think that the board

11:15

that they had did not execute its responsibilities

11:18

well and did need to go. But

11:20

I do hope that you and I will keep our eye

11:23

on some of the concerns that they were raising behind

11:25

closed doors, even if they would never be straightforward

11:27

about what those concerns actually were. Totally.

11:30

Well, Casey, thank you for taking one for the

11:32

team and recording an emergency podcast

11:34

from the airport. I hope that you are able

11:37

to get on a new flight and make your Thanksgiving

11:40

plans after all. And let me just say to the people

11:42

of OpenAI, this is the last one I have in me this

11:44

week. Okay, I don't care what kind of crazy shenanigans

11:46

you guys get up to with your fog machine and

11:48

your fire alarms that you're pulling at company

11:50

headquarters, you're not going to hear my voice again until next

11:52

Friday. And you can count on that. That's the

11:54

hard fork promise. We are going to take a vacation.

11:58

All right, maybe go grab that turkey out of the oven, Kevin.

11:59

I'm starting to see some smoke coming out from the

12:02

door behind you. That's just my fog machine

12:04

in solid air.

12:48

Heart Fork is produced by

12:50

Rachel Cohn. We're edited by

12:52

Jen Poignant. Today's show was entered

12:55

by Dan Ramirez. Original music

12:57

by Dan Powell. Our audience

12:59

editor is Nell Gologli. Video

13:02

production by Ryan Manning and Dylan

13:04

Bergison.