Episode 070 - OpenAI: An $85 Billion Dollar Governance Failure, and How it Could Have Been Anticipated, with Dr. Michael Zargham and Amber Case

The Ownership Economy

Over the last 120 hours, a governance crisis the likes of which we may never see repeated happened at world-leading artificial intelligence company OpenAI, culminating in the firing (and rehiring!) of Sam Altman, with a tectonic shift in their governance in the space of a few days. In this episode we explore what led to this situation, how it could have been simulated ahead of time, and what you should do with your governance design if you’re thinking of starting a world-changing technology company, to ensure maximal flexibility and make governance an asset and not a liability.

Joining us for this episode are Dr. Michael Zargham, board member and PI at the Metagovernance Project, and Amber Case, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Superset, DAODAO, and other ventures. Both guests are principal investigators at the Metagovernance Project, a nonprofit foundation focused on building open-source tooling and protocols for a governance layer around the internet.