Howard: Non-profit boards cannot control commercial entities with equity-compensated staff
Jeremy Howard · Answer.ai & AI Magic with Jeremy Howard · Aug 17, 2024 · at 7:55
Jeremy Howard discusses the structural failure of OpenAI's hybrid non-profit/for-profit governance structure preceding Sam Altman's temporary firing.
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“This didn't make sense to have like a so-called non-profit where then there are people working at a commercial company that's owned by or controlled nominally by the non-profit where the people in the company are being given the equivalent of stock options. Like everybody there was working there with expecting to make money largely from their equity. So the idea that then a board could exercise control By saying like, oh, we're worried about safety issues, and so we're going to do something that decreases the profit of the company, when every stakeholder in the company, their remuneration pretty much is tied to their profit, it obviously couldn't work.”
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