This is all court intrigue of course, but why else are we in the comments section of an article talking about the internals of this thing? We love the drama, don't we.

I mean, there seem to be this cult following around Sam Altman on HN and Twitter. But do the common user care like at all?

What sane user would want a shitcoin CEO in charge of a product they depend on?

Maybe I’m special or something, but nothing changed to me. I always wonder why people suddenly lose “trust” in a brand, as if it was a concrete of internal relationships or something. Everyone knows that “corporate” is probably a snakepit. When it comes out to public, it’s not a sign of anything, it just came out. Assuming there was nothing like that in all the brands you love is living with your eyes closed and ears cupped. There’s no “trust” in this specific sense, because corporate and ideological conflicts happen all the time. All OAI promises are still there, afaiu. No mission statements were changed. Except Sam trying to ignore these, also afaiu. Not saying the board is politically wise, but they drove the thing all this time and that’s all that matters. Personally I’m happy they aren’t looking like political snakes (at least that is my ignorant impression for the three days I know their names).

Granted, it's also possible the reasons are as you state and they were simply that incompetent at managing PR.

So even if it's just "why did they insult Sam while kicking him out?" there is definitely a bigger, more interesting story here than standard board disagreement over direction of the company.

Microsoft and the investors knew they were "investing" in a non-profit. Lets not try to weasel word our way out of that fact.

the article below basically says the same. Kind of reminds Friendster and the likes - striking a gold vein and just failing to scale efficient mining of that gold, i.e. the failure is at the execution/operationalization :

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-a...