OpenAI CEO Ouster: Not Likely To See Anything Like This Again, But a Reminder Of a Few Key Principles

While you are not likely to see such a strange corporate drama play out so publicly again, it is still a good reminder for everyone that Boards of Directors and corporation bylaws are important -- particularly for you as a CEO, and for investors.

* Normally as a CEO, you can help decide the Board by negotiating at the time of your start for people loyal to you, or a specific structure.

* Most CEOs also negotiate a healthy equity incentive package for raising the stock or value of the company.

* Many tech companies like Meta, Shopify, and others have adopted dual-class voting shares where the Founder can maintain control over their company, while still holding a minority share.

OpenAI had none of these. Sam Altman did not directly own any equity in the firm or have any special voting rights.

If you're Google and Amazon at this stage, you are excited about the chaos. Do you think Microsoft or anyone would invest new billions into OpenAI again, without renegotiating corporate structure? Not likely.

Don't you think Amazon is happier with its Anthropic investment today than it was last week? Highly likely.

As a CEO or investor, the time to negotiate these types of things is at the time of the event. That's when you have the most leverage. If something seems fishy, probably better to trust your gut. There is always another opportunity out there.

Of course the peculiarities of OpenAI, its quest for safe AGI all played a role in getting to this point -- in your situation, it's likely a little more straightforward. After all, we are not all being asked to become CEO of a generational company.

It definitely seems to me that with the Founder out who was pushing for faster innovation, this move benefits its growing list of competitors.