The board didn’t explain themselves even after repeated chances, citing possible legal challenges.
And it’s safe to say that they dismissed Altman in an unnecessarily histrionic way.
But it can’t be denied that the directors might have had valid reasons for letting Altman go, at least depending on how they interpreted their humanistic directive.
The new board seems likely to interpret that directive differently.
Currently, OpenAI’s board consists of former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, D’Angelo (the only holdover from the original board) and Larry Summers, the economist and former Harvard president.
Taylor is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur, having co-founded numerous companies, including FriendFeed (acquired by Facebook) and Quip (through whose acquisition he came to Salesforce).