Comment by palmotea
1 day ago
> It seems like the larger problem is he maintains access of keys and systems as opposed to the board and can boot out anyone not loyal to him ( or any other admin who could remove him).
So what happens when the courts get involved?
Because "he won, because he was the only one with the passwords," seems like a software engineer fantasy.
It's a true power struggle. As a software engineer I have actually fallen into the trap of thinking that because of the law or a contract something would happen. It is a softer power than I expected.
The board wants to make money, that's why they hold shares and positions. If Mullenweg has the power to destroy value, that will be powerful leverage over them. If his employees side with him, if he holds the accounts, they'll have to negotiate carefully.
Of course, you would need a lawyer to determine when this crosses from a civil dispute to a criminal dispute because at some point him using the keys when he's not authorized could be a crime and if they can get the cops involved that certainly changes the dynamic.
This is why Sam Altman is in charge at OpenAI and not the board members that tried to fire him.
I think there’s a few big differences between OpenAI and Automattic:
On the “good for the board” side:
1. OpenAI from the POV of investors has both a pretty high p(massive returns) and a pretty high p(no returns). Even if they’re convinced AI is going to swallow the economy, that doesn’t mean OpenAI wins that. This discourages risky moves.
2. The range in outcomes from a Matt-less Automattic are much less varied than for OpenAI. Replacing him isn’t going to sink the company but it’s also not going to have a massive increase in valuation. It’s purely a decision that he’s a risk factor with his behaviour.
3. I’m sure there’s many good staff members in Automattic, but the work they do is pretty standard and understood, so there’s fewer irreplaceable individuals if any of them quit in support of Matt.
4. Because OpenAI is relatively new and has had such high growth, there were both a lot of true believers among the staff that it had to be Altman, and people who had a significant portion of their net worth locked into yet untradable shares that did not want the boat rocked.
5. What openAI hopes to achieve in marketing and policy requires a figurehead and only Altman had mass recognition. Matt’s public awareness is much lower and Automattic’s need for a public facing figurehead is lower.
In the pro-Matt factors:
1. Altman did not have an outright majority of the shares, Matt does
2. He did somewhat prepare by doing waves of voluntary severance to get his internal opponents to leave
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A big part in both stories is that the boards were unwilling to actually state what exactly the CEO did wrong or why they have lost confidence - be that professionalism or not wanting to deliver ammunition for lawfare - which perfectly sets up the CEO to position himself as a victim to the greed and power games of the shadowy board
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> why Sam Altman is in charge at OpenAI and not the board members
Did OpenAI have a corporate board try to fire Sam? Or a non-profit board?
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It's already criminal from the sound of it
But that's less interesting for the involved parties. The more interesting question for them: Will it make us more money?
Yeah, but I am doubtful that the board wants to involve the police.
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Up next, the leaking of the boards internal communications. All the dirty laundry - more at 11.
Reminds me of that story of the CEO of ARM China was fired but refused to return the chop which meant he was still in power.
What's a chop?
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/arm-china-investo...
> Wu retains control of the Chinese unit via his possession of the company stamp which is necessary in China to authorize important bureaucratic procedures.
Chop is another word for the stamp.
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Seals used as signatures by pretty much everybody: individuals, companies, government institutions, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seals_in_the_Sinosphere
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Eventually someone is 'root'
Up until recently (and my intervention) my work had multiple aws accounts tied to individual people, where they had inherited a personal account into the billing org.
There are also, in business use, some domains where an executive personally owns the registration but has delegated DNS into the company. There is no written agreement.
A former employer completely lost access to a couple of social media accounts (twitter/$company, etc) after laying off enough people.
Possession is 9/10ths of the law.
I don't think that applies to Slack admin access.
In absence of a good enforcement mechanism, it absolutely does apply. Is Slack going to strip Mullenweg of admin control in absence of court order, as long as the Slack bills are paid? It would set a terrible precedent for them to do so unilaterally. Whatever the legal process this battle follows, it will be a year or two before it's even possible for a final ruling + court order for the handover of Slack admin control to happen. That's de facto Slack control for at least a year or two.
If employees can be persuaded to move themselves + systems to a board controlled chat instance, that's an angle, but Mullenweg has stronger cards if he's liked by employees.
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It absolutely does.
OAUTH is 9/10ths of system access, it doesn't have the same ring to it...
And yet
That reminds me of the San Fco "network administrator" who would not provide the passwords to anyone in city gov't and brought things down to a standstill. Eventually he capitulated and provided the governor the passwords to their networks. Some people!
If he really did this, he's going to prison, but not for a few years. Defrauding shareholders is one of the worst things you can do, because it attacks the system directly.
No, people defraud shareholders all the time these days and get away with it. Look at Boeing
What did the Boeing CEO do to defraud shareholders?
How is Sam Altman still on loose then
There is always a bigger fish, and sometimes the shareholders are the small fish and never realize.
... literally all of the SPAC mania was about circumventing regulation and defrauding shareholders in public markets. All of the SPACs are worth a fraction of what they were at listing. I don't see anyone being prosecuted.
Edit: I take that back, [1] this guy got prison time. Do Chamath next.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-ceo-special-purp...