Adam was appointed to the OpenAI board in April 2018, long before ChatGPT and Poe. He's always been somewhat interested/involved in AI/ML so the appointment broadly makes sense to me.
Also keep in mind that a year earlier in Spring 2017 Sam Altman led Quora's Series D, after YC previously joined in on Quora's Series C in 2014. So the two of them clearly had some pre-existing relationship.
I don't think OpenAI and Quora (the product) are a serious conflict of interest. You claim "I'm sure Quora views took a hit after ChatGPT" but I really doubt that's true in any meaningful way. Quora's struggles are a separate issue and predate the GPT craze of the last year.
Nor were Poe and OpenAI competitors until recently; Poe was simply building on top of OpenAI models, the same as hundreds of other ventures in the space right now.
However...I do agree that the GPTs announcement two weeks ago now creates a very clear conflict of interest--OpenAI is now competing directly against Poe. And because of that, I agree that Adam probably should leave the board.
The timing also raises the question of whether booting Sam is in any way related to the GPTs launch and to Poe. Perhaps Sam wasn't candid about the fact that they were about to be competing with Adam's company. The whole thing is messy and not a good look and exactly why you try to avoid these conflicts of interest to begin with.
I never said Adam should've never been on board. I was arguing about the part after Poe was competing with OpenAI after DevDay. That's where he has a clear, very strong conflict of interest and to be honest that's where the board/Adam took the most impactful decision that OpenAI board ever made.
On the other hand, Sam & Greg had the opportunity to confront Adam about the obvious conflict and likely could have forced him to step down if they wanted him to. They made their choice. Zero mention about Adam & Poe in the leaks from Sam's camp also suggests Sam doesn't fault Adam's character here.
I didn't read OpenAI's company charter, but forcing Adam down would probably require a board majority. It's not like they would have made Adam step down if they wanted to.
Nope, Poe was always building on OpenAI API and their GPTs. In fact Poe was one of the first companies to get access to GPT-4-32k context length a few months ago and they were the first to make it accessible to their users.
Also keep in mind that a year earlier in Spring 2017 Sam Altman led Quora's Series D, after YC previously joined in on Quora's Series C in 2014. So the two of them clearly had some pre-existing relationship.
I don't think OpenAI and Quora (the product) are a serious conflict of interest. You claim "I'm sure Quora views took a hit after ChatGPT" but I really doubt that's true in any meaningful way. Quora's struggles are a separate issue and predate the GPT craze of the last year.
Nor were Poe and OpenAI competitors until recently; Poe was simply building on top of OpenAI models, the same as hundreds of other ventures in the space right now.
However...I do agree that the GPTs announcement two weeks ago now creates a very clear conflict of interest--OpenAI is now competing directly against Poe. And because of that, I agree that Adam probably should leave the board.
The timing also raises the question of whether booting Sam is in any way related to the GPTs launch and to Poe. Perhaps Sam wasn't candid about the fact that they were about to be competing with Adam's company. The whole thing is messy and not a good look and exactly why you try to avoid these conflicts of interest to begin with.