In deciding to hire him back, Helen Toner said OpenAI lawyers said she and other members of the board could be personally liable if the company lost a lot of money over keeping him out.
I suppose that would be a reasonable reason on a practical level. However, how is a board liable for that? The CEO lies and intentionally withholds information, employees strangely hold the company hostage, and yet it's the board held liable? The board governed the non-profit OpenAI.
I am pretty sure a lawyer could be found that would happily take that case against the board. And that Altman would be quite willing to go that far. At least I would not have staked my professional life and personal economy on it not happening.
PG called it over 15 years ago: "You could parachute him [Sam Altman] into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king".
Which should have been a bluff (board members typically have "director's insurance" to cover exactly this scenario - trying to control a company by threatening to pierce the corporate veil and sue board members individually) but shows you what sort of tactics were being employed by the Altman side. cf. Sutskever's flipping
