Sam didn’t inform the board that he owned the OpenAI Startup Fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company.
To me, this is the most damning element. This would have had to have taken some amount of active deceit to pull off, indeed, the current website reads:
The fund’s investors include Microsoft and other OpenAI partners, although OpenAI itself is not an investor.
In particular, this revelation makes it look like the main reason the fund was started wasn’t to create a developer ecosystem around OpenAI (as claimed), but to personally tie Sam to the success of OpenAI.
(The reason this is a serious problem is that having a serious financial stake in the success of AI technology disincentivises you to care about the negative externalities of increasing that business, which is what OpenAI’s byzantine structure was designed to accomplish)
To me, this is the most damning element. This would have had to have taken some amount of active deceit to pull off, indeed, the current website reads:
In particular, this revelation makes it look like the main reason the fund was started wasn’t to create a developer ecosystem around OpenAI (as claimed), but to personally tie Sam to the success of OpenAI.
(The reason this is a serious problem is that having a serious financial stake in the success of AI technology disincentivises you to care about the negative externalities of increasing that business, which is what OpenAI’s byzantine structure was designed to accomplish)