This Is What You Get When You Hire a Snake Oil Salesman with an Unbroken Record of Failing Upward

When Sam Altman got fired briefly by OpenAI, the said that they did so because, "he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board,” shorthand for, "He lied his ass off."

Former board member Helen Toner has now detailed these lies, and this goes beyond, "Self-aggrandizing tech bro getting high on his own farts," and into criminal acts, including fraud:

The former OpenAI board member Helen Toner has shared explosive new details about what led to CEO Sam Altman's brief ousting in November.

In an interview with Bilawal Sidhu on "The TED AI Show" that aired Tuesday, Toner said Altman lied to the board "multiple" times.

One example Toner cited was that OpenAI's board learned about the release of ChatGPT on Twitter.

Nope no crime, just tech bro fart stuff, though it could be argued that this sort of behavior might merit SEC or FTC civil action.

………

Toner — one of the board members who voted to kick Altman out — alleged that Altman also lied to the board by keeping them in the dark about the company's ownership structure.

"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," she said.

Deriving financial benefit through deceit.  Yeah, fraud.

She said that Altman keeping that from the board "really damaged our ability to trust him" and that the board was "already talking pretty seriously about whether we needed to fire him" in October.

The question here is not whether you need to fire him.  That's corporate governance 101.

The question is whether you pick up the phone and call state and federal prosecutors for securities and other forms of fraud.

Spoiler:  The answer is, "Yes, you DO drop a dime on him to the authorities."

………

She said that there were other individual examples but that ultimately, "we just couldn't believe things that Sam was telling us, and that's a completely unworkable place to be in as a board."

Toner added that it was "totally impossible" for the board to trust Altman's word. The role of the board, she said, was to have independent oversight of OpenAI and "not just helping the CEO to raise more money."

But then, last October, the board had several conversations in which two executives detailed their own experiences with Altman and used the phrase "psychological abuse," Toner said.

Yeah, that's what lying psychopaths do, they abuse people. (My money is on gaslighting)

Unfortunately, what lying psychopaths do is get lots of venture funding, because VC folks love lying psychopaths.

It would be amusing if Scarlett Johansson is what takes him down.