OpenAI employees publicly defend Sam Altman's receptiveness to critical feedback, citing personal experiences with leadership. Former staffers on the Sora team also praise his openness.
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Several current and former OpenAI employees publicly defended CEO Sam Altman's willingness to accept critical feedback, pushing back on claims that the company discourages honest dissent. The responses came after a since-deleted post by AI product leader Nick Huber described an interview where an OpenAI interviewer asked him to use data to test a belief purportedly held by Altman.
Eric Mitchell, who co-leads OpenAI's Post-training Frontiers team, wrote on social media that he had "directly disagreed with, corrected, or expressed frustration with leadership to Sam" multiple times. "Sam always responded with curiosity, open-mindedness, and even deference when I've brought disagreement/complaint/correction to him," Mitchell said. He added that any suggestion of a culture where people are retaliated against for honest criticism was inaccurate.
Two former employees on the Sora team, the AI video product OpenAI shut down in March, also praised Altman. Gabriel Petersson, a former OpenAI and Midjourney researcher who now runs his own company, wrote: "Can confirm, Sam is super receptive." Will DePue, who left OpenAI in April, said the company was "exceptionally receptive to internal disagreement and critique, for better or worse." OpenAI researcher Brandon McKinzie wrote that he has given critical feedback directly to Altman and other leaders, and that "not only do they listen to critical feedback, they take it very seriously and take action on it."
The defense follows heightened scrutiny of Altman's leadership since his brief ousting and return as CEO in 2023. OpenAI's board at the time said Altman was "not consistently candid in his communications." Altman later said in a court battle with Elon Musk, "I believe I am an honest and trustworthy business person." The episode, which staffers call "the Blip," is the subject of an upcoming film directed by Luca Guadagnino, picked up by Neon after Amazon dropped the project amid deepening ties with OpenAI.
Victor Nunez, who works on OpenAI's Codex coding tool, wrote that the "amount of memes and hard conversations on a daily basis is astounding," but that the company culture "really leans into it." Nunez added that for all the AI and automation work the company does, the culture is "as human as it gets."
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