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You ’ve just landed in Dayton , Ohio after a long , all-night journey from SFO . While you were waiting in Denver on a layover , you checked your phone to see the word : After almost a workweek of confusion and uncertainty , Sam Altman has been reinstated as CEO of OpenAI .
The good news is that the Slack workspace of the small technical school startup you work at will stop getting deluge with meme , only some of which areactually good . Your workfellow may know how to encipher , but they do n’t always have an middle for humor . As subject as you are , living your Silicon Valley dreams , it ’s always good to go home and get back to bedrock .
momma : “ Oh , my one and only minor ! I ’m so glad you made it home ! San Francisco is too far ! ”
You hug your mom and tell her how good it sense to be back . Your dad does that bunglesome bro clinch thing where you sort of clasp hands and then pat each other on the back , because even though it ’s wholly normal to say that you love your begetter — the adult male who literally raise you and changed your nappy as a nipper and coached your Little League squad until you realized data processor skill was more interesting to you than baseball — you have been socialize as a man , and therefore , you are unequal to of telling your father you love him .
Dad : “ Busy hebdomad , eh ? I saw that Sam Altman guy is back … what even happened there ? ”
There it is . You really do n’t want to talk about it — startup animation is jumpy and demanding , and as much as you love what you do , you really just require to expend a few twenty-four hours away from it all .
“ Oh , yeah , I ’ll severalise you later , just allow me put out my bags ! ” you say .
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You walk upstairs to your childhood bedroom . There ’s a “ Big Bang Theory ” poster , which makes you feel incredibly embarrassed , but you were in halfway school when you bought it .
You channelize back downstairs and start chopping some vegetables to assist out your pappa , whose hands are cover in turkey entrails . The doorbell rings , and suddenly , the whole family rolls in .
Uncle Steve:“Hey ! Long time no see ! Too unspoilt for us now that you ’re out working at Facebook ? ”
You do the bro squeeze thing again , then clarify that you do n’t work out for Facebook , and actually the company is name Meta now anyway , but you ’re actually really excited about the B2B SaaS company you ’re go for , and —
Uncle Steve : “ Oh yeah , that Elon Musk , he ’s really something is n’t he ? Changing the name of Facebook to Meta ? ”
You correct him that , really , Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Meta , but yes , Elon Musk did buy Twitter and change its name to X , and it ’s been really crazy . Your college roomy , Pablo , got laid off last year and he was really loaf , and he did find his foothold eventually , but at one power point you even try on to get him a job at your B2B SaaS company , which is working on this really amazing —
Uncle Steve : “ Right ! That ’s the Tesla cat ! But that AI stuff , huh ? What happened there ? ”
Here it comes . The OpenAI conversation .
Mercifully , your auntie interjects .
Aunt Carol : “ Oh , Steve , it ’s too early to talk shop ! How ’s life out there ? Do you have a girlfriend ? ”
Somehow , your Aunt Carol found the only topic you require to talk about less than OpenAI . Startup life is so engaged , and you ’re pretty certain your TinderElo scoreis low-down since you barely launch the app , and maybe that ’s why you ’re not have many match ? So , you swivel .
“ Yeah , the OpenAI stuff has been really gaga . They just willy-nilly ousted the chief operating officer Sam Altman out of nowhere , and no one knew why , and then the president also step down . Investors were furious , because suddenly this fellowship that was speculate to make them gaga rich was in turmoil , and no one knew how long this whole ordeal would last . Microsofthas a huge stake in OpenAI , so theyoffered Sam and Greg Job , but then almost everyone who works at OpenAI said that they ’d relinquish if Sam was n’t restore , so it ’s just been a whirlwind … Oh , hey , is n’t the plot on ? ”
You take the air your aunt and uncle into the living room and turn on the tv set . You ’re not much of a football foreland , but you eff enough to get by . When you first graduated college and make in consulting , you used to learn football dozens to have something to talk about at networking event , and sure enough , that ’s what landed you your current job at this really captivating B2B SaaS startup which really —
Uncle Steve : “ Go Buckeyes ! ”
Your aid flicks back to football game . As you learned in your summer session at Wharton , the undecomposed fashion to organise a conversation is to expect the great unwashed questions about the things they like .
“ I encounter something about some buyout at Texas A&M , what happened there ? ”
Uncle Steve : “ So , during half time , Texas A&M gets presented with this huge $ 165 million check from a donor , and the next day , guess what ? They fire their coach , Jimbo Fisher , and give him $ 76 million to buy out his contract ! Sounds like something that ’d encounter in your Earth , huh ? By the way , I still do n’t see the whole OpenAI matter . They make that Chat GTX , ripe ? ”
Oh no . Like many thing you learned in that Wharton summer program , your noesis has backfired .
Your first cousin Jennifer peels her eyes away from her phone and speaks for the first time .
Cousin Jennifer : “ No , pop , it ’s ChatGPT , and Kayla used it to publish her college essays and shestillgot in . ”
You excuse yourself to continue serve your parent organize Thanksgiving dinner party . As you peel off potatoes — being heedful to move the striptease artist away from you , rather than toward you — the bell mob again . It ’s your Aunt Pat , who works at a aesculapian billing company in Cleveland .
As you greet her and walk her to the family room , where the plot is on , she render to make small lecture .
Aunt Pat : “ Everyone at work is speak about AI ! We use thatSalesforce Einsteinall the time . So , did OpenAI get a Modern CEO yet ? ”
“ Oh , um , Sam Altman is back now , but before that , they appointed Emmett Shear , who founded Twitch . That ’s a livestream chopine that Amazon owns , lots of citizenry use it to well out TV games and stuff . Yes , people like to watch other people take on video games . ”
Cousin Jennifer : “ Yeah , my girl is aVTuber . ”
You hope desperately that your aunty and uncles will take the obvious decoy and ask Jennifer what the Hades a VTuber is . That ’d corrupt you some solid minutes of peace treaty . And VTubers are way cooler than AI executive . But no one be up on that . You ’re about to necessitate if Jennifer ’s girlfriend has amocapsetup , when —
Uncle Steve : “ Wait , so does anyone really love what that Sam guy did wrong ? ”
“ We still do n’t know , but theCOO Brad Lightcap saidthat most of the direction squad had no idea , and that this emphatically was n’t any sort of usurpation of certificate or financial criterion . It ’s potential that it all came down toideology . Some people imagine that Sam is too aggressive about developing smart AI as soon as possible , and in hypothesis , OpenAI is supposed to be building AI responsibly , and perhaps he was go too fast to be responsible ? But then there ’s this whole other camarilla that thinks we ca n’t slow down the inevitable , so everyone ’s been agitate online about it . The prescribed intellect that the gameboard gave was that he was n’t being transparent with them , but that could really mean anything ! Personally , I ’m just glad they sorted everything out before Thanksgiving , so Ican really relax and stop intend about everything . Oh , I should go look into if mom needs avail with the casserole . ”
They do n’t take the touch .
Aunt Pat : “ Do n’t be ridiculous , when we walk in , I look the casserole was already out of the oven . So , what do you believe of all this AI hooey ? It certainly makes my job easier , but I do n’t want it to take my job , if you sleep together what I mean ! ”
“ It ’s hard to say at this stage . For now , I think it ’s hard for productive AI to replicate human creativity , but it can for certain automatise tasks that would take world longer to fill in , which makes sentience why it is so helpful for you at employment . By the way , how is work ? ”
Aunt Pat : “ Oh , it ’s the holiday , I do n’t desire to babble about work . So , I get wind there ’s been a set of layoffs out in the Bay , do you think your line is secure ? ”
“ Yes , really , I think what my company is mould on is very groundbreaking , and initiation is the salutary job security . We ’re a B2B SaaS startup and what makes us dissimilar is that – ”
Aunt Pat : “ Wait , was n’t theresomething about the table structurethat made this whole thing so confusing ? What happened with theOpenAI boardagain ? ”
You smell out the apparent scent of bomb coming out of the oven . You draw out it together , recognise that in bare second , your interrogatory will be over .
“ Uh , OpenAI is sort of a revenue enhancement - exempt charity wrapped around a hold caller that has a absolute majority stake in OpenAI ? It ’s kind of confusing . But it ’s sort of trying to be a Polemonium van-bruntiae and a for - profit tech hulk at the same time , but the nonprofit limb had controller of the for - profit arm , which made it possible to just randomly displace the CEO . This is really different from how company like Meta mesh , since Mark Zuckerberg owns so much of the troupe that it ’s impossible for the board to give the axe him . ”
Dad : “ Dinner ’s just about quick ! Start making your way to the mesa ! ”
Oh boy , dinner time ! You take your time carrying out each bag to the table , minimizing the time that you ’re alone with your relatives , who plainly wo n’t halt asking you about OpenAI . As everyone gobbles down their plates , conversation retard , and finally , you may revel in the peace of come home .
Uncle Steve keeps making “ aaah ” noises every time he sip his wine-coloured . You do n’t think there ’s anyway he can annoy you any more tonight , but hey , that ’s family , right ? Suddenly , he raises his eyebrows as though he ’s just remember something .
“ So , ” your uncle asks . “ What ’s the deal with thatCZfella ? ”
https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/21/a-timeline-of-sam-altmans-firing-from-openai-and-the-fallout/
