Painful Professional Experience
Sam Altman describes the board saga at OpenAI as the most painful professional experience of his life. He uses words like "chaotic," "shameful," "upsetting," and "painful" to convey the intensity of this ordeal.
"That was definitely the most painful professional experience of my life. Chaotic and shameful and upsetting and a bunch of other negative things."
Despite the turmoil, Altman also experienced moments of "a great deal of love and very little hate" from the immense support of the people he cares about. He likens the experience to "going to your own eulogy, watching people say all these great things about you."
Altman had a sense that the road to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) would involve a "giant power struggle", and this board saga was an early instance of that. He felt at times that it could have been "one of the worst things to ever happen for AI safety", but also believes it helped build resilience and prepare OpenAI for future challenges.
The board saga was a pivotal moment that Altman had anticipated, as he expected "something crazy and explosive" to happen between when OpenAI started and when it created AGI.
Altman describes the aftermath of the saga as a "fugue state" where he was "just sort of like drifting through the days", feeling "down" and "out of it" for about a month to 45 days. Keeping OpenAI running in the midst of this personal turmoil was extremely difficult, as he just "wanted to like crawl into a cave and kind of recover for a while."
Lessons Learned from this experience have proven valuable for Altman and OpenAI, as they work to build a more resilient organization and governance structure to withstand the pressures of developing transformative AI systems.
[Diagram to be made of the emotional rollercoaster and personal toll of the board saga on Altman]