Greg Brockman went on CNBC to explain that the mass exodus at OpenAI isn't atypical. He said this with a straight face. He said this about a company that lost its chief scientist, its safety team leads, and half its founding team in eighteen months.
Atypical would be if nobody left. Atypical would be if people stayed at a company currently structured like a nonprofit controlled by a for-profit controlled by a board that fired the CEO and then rehired him five days later after the entire staff threatened to quit. That's the normal place. That's where you build a career.
Brockman wants you to know turnover is standard in tech. He's right. Engineers leave all the time. They leave for more money. They leave for less drama. They leave because their equity vested and they'd rather collect unemployment than attend another all-hands meeting about alignment.
They don't usually leave while telling reporters the company abandoned its safety mission. They don't usually leave and immediately start competing AI labs with the same pitch about responsible development. But sure. Totally typical.
The CNBC exclusive angle is doing heavy lifting here. Brockman sat down for an exclusive interview to say nothing is wrong. He burned an exclusive to deliver a statement a PR intern could have emailed. That's how not-worried he is.
Retail traders will read this headline and think it's bullish. Brockman says it's fine so it must be fine. The man who came back to OpenAI after the board fired his best friend says the departures are normal. No possible bias there. No reason to doubt him.
These are the same people who bought Tesla at $400 because Elon tweeted a rocket emoji.
They'll be in the OpenAI IPO too, whenever that happens, buying shares in a company whose head of safety left because of safety concerns but whose president says departures are typical, loading up their Robinhood accounts like they're picking lottery numbers, confused when their portfolio looks like the OpenAI org chart.
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