The OpenAI board had full legal power to fire Sam Altman.
They used it. Within days he was back and most of the board was gone instead.
Here's the part that gets skipped. The firing happened while Sam was personally negotiating a tender offer that would let employees cash out millions in stock. Microsoft, the company's biggest backer and supplier, found out with zero warning. Every major investor had been brought in by Sam himself.
The board owned the authority. Everyone else owned the leverage.
That gap is the real lesson, and it reaches far past one boardroom. A title or a board seat means nothing the moment it collides with money that's already moving in a different direction.
Governance on paper describes who's allowed to act. It says nothing about who can actually stop something once it's in motion.
Eric Ries has studied this pattern across founders for years. His test for any governance structure: who loses money if the vote actually goes through.
Before you trust an org chart, an approval process, or a board seat, ask that question first. It tells you more than the document ever will.
Check the incentives.
Video
Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta)
I literally got The Lean Startup Guy to give a masterclass on how to build AI companies:
0:00 - The @ericries masterclass begins
2:57 - Why OpenAI keeps almost dying
6:27 - Dario's secret weapon at Anthropic
9:19 - The 4 forces of corruption
14:51 - The most besieged person in your org
19:22 - Success is like taking heroin
20:42 - Costco's founder got fired
28:43 - J&J's $10B mistake
31:25 - The structure VCs have never heard of
40:39 - AnswerAI: 9 people, no managers
44:42 - "Mimetic conformity machines"
47:27 - Live demo: how Eric writes with AI
57:39 - The charter mistake that killed SVB
1:08:07 - Does Build-Measure-Learn break?
1:15:45 - Where to get Incorruptible
Video
— https://nitter.net/aakashgupta/status/2079415482827117044#m