The majority has spoken
It's not about what the "people in charge" want.
I plan out topics for my Substack weeks in advance. I have a giant pile of topics in Trello and then add them to a content calendar I create for myself. But I only write the posts a day or two in advance, so sometimes I'll change course -- either because of the news or something else going on in my life or whatever.
This week, my planned topic was how companies need to think about what's best for the majority of workers instead of the minority. Specifically, I wanted to focus on return-to-office mandates.
But this is one of those times when the stars have aligned and the news matches my chosen topic for the week! The drama at OpenAI over the past few days has been a roller coaster, for sure. If you exist outside of the tech world and how it sometimes permeates mainstream news (and if you are -- good for you, keep doing that), here's a quick catch-up, as it exists right now.
What's going on with OpenAI employees?
On Friday, November 17, the board of OpenAI fired its CEO, Sam Altman. OpenAI rose to prominence in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT. Outside of that overnight success (and about 100 million users), OpenAI's products are the backbone of many companies, like Jasper AI. Jasper raised $125 million in a Series A round of venture capital, which is an insane amount of money. So we're not talking about my spouse who uses ChatGPT to ask, "How can I entertain my guests for Thanksgiving?" We're talking about serious businesses that rely on OpenAI technology.
I'm not going to comment on the board's firing of Altman other than to point out that OpenAI has a very unusual corporate structure. The board is part of a non-profit arm of the entity. Its core goal is building "safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity" versus maximizing shareholder value.
Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, had offered Altman a job leading a new AI division. OpenAI named two different interim CEOs in about a 48-hour period (the first, Mira Murati, was replaced after she expressed her support for Altman).
In a drama that could play out as an additional season of Succession, Altman is due to return as CEO to OpenAI, coinciding with two of the four remaining board members being replaced.
I'm not going to comment or speculate on this complete roller coaster in the tech world over the last few days. But what I want to point out is what happened with OpenAI employees. More than 700 of 770 employees threatened to quit if Altman was not reinstated. Whatever else may have been going on, he was regarded highly by the employees at OpenAI and good at recruiting the best talent to work on what essentially is an emerging technology -- where the level of expertise required narrows the pool of talent.
Whatever else may have been going on at OpenAI, the demands from the workers were clear: Altman comes back, or we will go.
Meanwhile, in return-to-office demands...
Back to regularly scheduled programming... The claim I continue to hear from CEOs is that return-to-office mandates are better for "productivity," "camaraderie" and "creativity." Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote, "Collaborating and inventing is easier and more effective when we're in person." Even Sam Altman called the remote work "experiment" a "mistake." Better to have everyone work in an office together.
My question is: better for how many?
The assumption is that the office is better for the majority of workers. But what if the majority of workers work better at home?
It has been well-documented that offices are problematic for women, people of color, people with disabilities, parents, people with long commutes... the list goes on and on. The office was not better for these people. They faced everything from harassment to a lack of accommodations for their needs.
In pre-pandemic life, they didn't know they could work better at home because the company didn't allow it or they'd never tried. But what if the majority of workers are actually more productive at home?
The majority is being forced to adapt to the loudest people in the room. The loudest people in the room are complaining about how much their work has been diminished. These same people also benefit from location bias, office politics, and overbearing personalities. They can't be the loudest person in the room when the room is virtual -- because the playing field has been leveled.
Of course, this is speculative and anecdotal. But I have yet to see a headline read, "We took a vote, and the majority of people want to return to the office." It's people at the top, making a decision based on what they think is best for the company. Without real evidence to support it.
If a poll were taken among employees, with employees insisting that they're more productive at home, my guess is that the CEOs would still demand a return to the office. In fact, it's played out at some companies like Apple, with employees refusing to go back into the office, claiming they could do "exceptional work" from home. Apple finally had to threaten to terminate employees who didn't show up.
And, in many cases, the companies had made a commitment to remote work. Then changed the rules of the game, sometimes without much warning.
The only reason to insist on a return to office over the majority of employees' protests is that it's better for the people at the top.
There is power in numbers
Back to the OpenAI employees. What happens when 90% of workers say, "We're not going to show up unless you do what we want"?
Sam Altman was reinstated as CEO and the board has been replaced.
Despite the board's reasons for Altman's firing (which are still murky), the employees quickly realized their leverage if they banded together. They were the majority, by far. OpenAI could not continue to exist with such a mass exodus of employees.
Now, it's important to note that the OpenAI employees had a safety net: Microsoft reportedly guaranteed all of their jobs, working under Altman.
Did the employees know they'd have jobs working at Microsoft at the time they signed a letter calling for Altman's reinstatement? Maybe not. Did they know that they'd likely be scooped up quickly if they entered the job market? Probably, and that's certainly part of the equation.
But I couldn't help but marvel at their solidarity and how quickly they came together. Their message to the board was clear: you don't get to make decisions that go against what we want. You cannot exist without us.
There's a reason there's been an uptick in unionized labor in ht U.S. Between October 2021 and September 2022, the National Labor Relations Board saw a 53% increase in union election petitons.
We've done what the minority has wanted for long enough. We've had voices stifled, suffered mistreatment in the office, and sacrificed our time with long hours and long commutes.
Props to the OpenAI employees for taking matters into their own hands.
There is power in solidarity.
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