Only Leaders Have Followers
Sam Altman was fired last week. You may not recognize that name but most if not all of you have heard of his company, Open ai or it’s byproduct ChatGPT. Even if you don’t know who he is, after last week’s events, I think you should know his story. Sam Altman, along with Elon Musk (and Elon’s $100 million in funding), co-founded OpenAi as a non-profit to advance artificial intelligence safely and for the greater good of humanity. But after years of draining cash, he had to convert the company structure in order to accept capital for his cash hungry technology. Microsoft alone invested $10 billion dollars in the company. This change of course required an “impartial” board of directors and governance to be added. And last week that carefully curated board staged a full-on coup and ousted him. This, on its own, is not all that interesting. Brilliant founders getting fired by the board happens all the time. It happened to both Elon and Steve Jobs. What’s interesting is what happened after he got fired.
Within less than a week major shareholder publicly supported him, recruited him, and 95% staff of the company staff stood up and said we don’t agree with this. Out of 770 or so employees, 700 of them threw the emoji middle finger at the board (literally) and threaten to quit in a signed letter saying, “Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI, we are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees.”
Wow! Just let that sink in for a second. 95% of the entire company signed that letter. Are you that kind of leader? Have you created that kind of impact on that many people? Or are you working for that kind of leader? The kind of leader that has such great vision and makes things around them so good and inspiring that people don’t want to see what it looks like without them?
What this board failed to see is that true leaders are not appointed. They are not created though a power struggle or even a title. In fact, most true leaders don’t really care about titles. They are too focused and obsessed with the mission and the people. They are about making the world and the people around them better.
AI is a delicate matter that needs a lot of brilliance and integrity to make sure it is developed properly. And I don’t know why Sam was fired. He may have been doing things he shouldn’t have been doing or maybe he got lost in the politics or had an unwellness to be controlled by the board. I don’t know and we may never know. But I do know that both Sam and his team deserve respect this week. They are the kind of people that change the world.
To me, this is the biggest takeaway from this experience is not that Sam was reinstated but that he and his team are a great example of who we should become. To be both the kind of people that stand up for what we think is right, even when it pushes us outside of our personal safe space, and to be the kind of leaders that have such great impact and are so good at our craft that people are willing to fight to stay a part of it. I want that!
Thanks for the reminders and the inspiration, Sam :) May a positive outcome be reached for all.
Giving Back
Steve Scanlon shared this with me, and I’d like to in turn share it with you:
This is a friend of mine who is an Italian guy living in Kenya. He lives in this little village and basically has felt called to help the women in the village find work. He has figured out a way to help them start a small fruit and grocery stand. It is pretty cool. Think of it as Micro Lending. Because he then spends his days teaching them how to become self-sustainable. But he really has no structure (like a big organization) or anything. Just hands and feet on dirt street. I wouldn’t normally do this, but he is trying (through this go fund me page) to raise some nominal amounts of dough. If you so feel called, he could sure use help. Nothing big just a few bucks and he can be helpful to the poorest of the poor.
(You can scroll to the bottom to read the English Translation of the Italian posting)
Notes that Resonated
· Are you making decisions that your 80-year-old self and 10-year-old self would be proud of?
· If you trust him. Why do you doubt?
· God knows why you’re in it! He is the architect and has all the blueprints.
· Let the one who set the destination control the ETA- Steven Furtick
· We only get what we give
· Sow into it before you know it
· Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean he didn’t speak it
· You’ll see it when you believe it.
· Whatever happened yesterday, you’ll get the chance to do better today
· Consistency magnifies talent
Videos to watch
The journaling process: (field notebooks, bullet journals, analog versus digital)
Productivity
Daily Logging
Top Quotes
In a disagreement there is always one thing both sides can agree on. Conflict resolution begins when you find it -Riaz Meghji
Gratitude is not only the greatest virtue it’s the parent of all others -Cicero
Archimedes on leverage, “Give me a place to stand and I shall move the Earth.”
Food & Drink
Holiday Cranberry Ginger Spritzer
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