OpenAI appointed David Vélez and Robin Vince to its board. Both are financial executives. Both have been doing finance for a long time. This is the entire story.
The company now has a nonprofit board and a for-profit board because apparently one wasn't confusing enough. They needed two boards. Like Noah's Ark but for regulatory complexity. Vélez and Vince will sit on both because why hire four people when you can overwork two.
Retail traders saw this news and immediately started scanning their portfolios for OpenAI stock. They will not find it. OpenAI is not publicly traded. This will not stop them from having opinions about the appointments. They will post screenshots of ChatGPT responses as DD. They will ask if this means calls on Microsoft are free money. The answer is no but they will buy them anyway.
Financial executives joining a tech board is the corporate equivalent of your dad chaperoning prom. Everyone pretends it changes something. Nothing changes. The dad stands in the corner. The kids do what they were going to do. Except now there's someone to blame when the cops show up.
Vélez founded Nubank. Vince worked at BNY Mellon. These are real accomplishments. They will matter exactly zero percent when Sam Altman decides to do whatever Sam Altman was already planning to do. Board members at companies like this exist to nod during meetings and collect compensation for nodding. It's a good gig if you can get it.
The appointments happened. The market did not move. Your portfolio did not move. Nothing moved except two executives from one office to a different office where they will attend more Zoom calls. If you traded on this news, you f*cked up twice: once for trading on it, and once for having access to a brokerage account in the first place.
Photo by Brecht Corbeel on Unsplash
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