This market will resolve to YES if Emmett Shear was CEO of OpenAI on Thursday, November 23, 2023 at midnight EST. It is being held open until stronger evidence can be obtained of what his status was.
Otherwise, it will resolve to NO.
RESOLUTION: This is why Manifold is better than Polymarket.
Rather than resolve the market immediately based on weak evidence, I was able to obtain a quote from Emmett Shear. Although I was told not to post the conversation itself, Shear himself implied in one message that he wasn't even sure what it meant to be the CEO of OpenAI. He then stated exactly:
"There's no obvious true answer to that question, you could argue anything from zero to thirteen days I think."
Shear himself acknowledges that the exact tasks he was supposed to perform were not defined, and even he doesn't know the exact dates of his tenure as CEO. Therefore, the resolution is N/A, and I believe that the competing USD markets on this topic were incorrectly resolved.
I know that all the rolled back trades will be disappointing to some, but the evidence is clear and convincing that OpenAI did not record actual data to ever answer this question. The company was in so much turmoil that even if an "official" statement is obtained from them in the future, it will be a retroactive opinion by whoever is working for OpenAI now, rather than a review of official records that were (never) created by the people involved at the time.
Thanks to the Manifold user who assisted in the research for this topic, and have a great day!
Related questions
RESOLUTION: This is why Manifold is better than Polymarket.
Rather than resolve the market immediately based on weak evidence, I was able to obtain a quote from Emmett Shear. Although I was told not to post the conversation itself, Shear himself implied in one message that he wasn't even sure what it meant to be the CEO of OpenAI. He then stated exactly:
"There's no obvious true answer to that question, you could argue anything from zero to thirteen days I think."
Shear himself acknowledges that the exact tasks he was supposed to perform were not defined, and even he doesn't know the exact dates of his tenure as CEO. Therefore, the resolution is N/A, and I believe that the competing USD markets on this topic were incorrectly resolved.
I know that all the rolled back trades will be disappointing to some, but the evidence is clear and convincing that OpenAI did not record actual data to ever answer this question. The company was in so much turmoil that even if an "official" statement is obtained from them in the future, it will be a retroactive opinion by whoever is working for OpenAI now, rather than a review of official records that were (never) created by the people involved at the time.
Thanks to the Manifold user who assisted in the research for this topic, and have a great day!
OK, we need to do something about this market. I want to deal with it today and resolve it soon, or make a long-term decision.
Has anyone contacted OpenAI's PR department? If not, I am going to try to find a phone number or E-Mail and send them a message. I will wait four hours for a response from anyone here, and if not, then it will be about opening time on the West Coast and I will send the message.
@Domer Because for some reason, this market blew up and got like 500 positions on it and people get really invested in their mana.
@Blomfilter Someone tried asking here already and he didn't respond unfortunately. IIRC people have also DMed him, even got a response, but still not an answer about when paperwork was signed.
All this suggests to me that Shear was still the backup plan if the Agreement In Principal fell through, and it would now be politically inconvenient to admit and risk angering the Altman faction.
I think he was told to go home and wait for them to finalize the deal with Altman, and then was technically CEO until Sam was officially reinstated around the 29th.
I can't prove this, but no one can prove that "no one" was CEO and it wasn't Sam. I don't mind if this market resolves against me if that's the default, I took that risk based on the description. But I think the preponderance of evidence is in favor of yes.
@Joshua Evidence? That's just speculation lol
Only evidence we have is from Shear who communicated in multiple different ways that he was no longer the CEO...
@Domer I mean, I would normally use the word CEO to mean actually doing the CEO job, not sitting at home just in case a deal with Sam isn't finalized. Resolving No based on him having stopped doing the CEO job regardless of paperwork is reasonable, and probably what people were predicting here before the announcement.
But absence of evidence can be some evidence of absence, and we were all looking everywhere for evidence of Sam having signed papers to be back before the 29th. I'm damn sure Sam wasn't CEO on Thanksgiving, and I think we all agree on that?
But yes, I'm speculating based on being confident in the Sam question that the Shear question should be the inverse.
contacting their PR department to resolve a market seems pretty extreme? particularly when the resolution description (and your much earlier comment replies to people) says without strong evidence it resolves No. I understand wanting to be as certain as possible but imo sometimes you just have to call it?
@Joshua The CEO of Cruise left weeks ago and still hasn't been replaced. Even if you think Sam wasn't the CEO on Thanksgiving, maybe there just wasn't a CEO. I don't know why no one is believing Emmett when he says he was the exCEO before Thanksgiving.
@SteveSokolowski Just resolve it No. No real need to resolve the opposite way as real-money markets. Already provided as much information as I could here. We won't get anything else, and your own rules state "Otherwise, it will resolve to NO."
Hey all - please signal boost my question to OpenAI so we can get a real answer:
@SteveSokolowski Polymarket resolved their analogue to this market to "No" prior to Thanksgiving: https://polymarket.com/event/emmett-shear-still-ceo-of-openai-by-end-of-week
https://vxtwitter.com/eshear/status/1727342399297630393
> ceo any% 55:32 — new record???
Emmett Shear Twitter/X Bio:
> interrim ex-CEO of OpenAI
https://vxtwitter.com/eshear/status/1727811933267759339
> Technically I stepped into the office twice, once Sunday night and once Monday morning, each for a couple hours.
https://fortune.com/2023/11/22/openai-ceo-sam-altman-emmett-shear-fired/
> Emmett Shear lasted just 72 hours as Sam Altman’s replacement as OpenAI CEO.
> Emmett Shear was named interim CEO of OpenAI on Sunday after Sam Altman's shocking ouster, only to be replaced around 3 days later when Altman was reinstated.
https://gizmodo.com/openai-ceo-emmett-shear-resignation-note-1851043130
> For 55 hours and 32 minutes, Emmett Shear steered the world’s leading artificial intelligence company, OpenAI, through its largest crisis ever. That chapter of Shear’s life and OpenAI’s history has now come to a close.
> An OpenAI employee share sale that values the firm at $86 billion is back on track following Sam Altman’s reinstatement as CEO late Tuesday night, The Information reported.
> After almost five days, he’s back: Sam Altman returns to OpenAI as its chief executive officer, the very same position he had held just 110 or so hours prior, in what will come to be known in Silicon Valley as “the time before OpenAI imploded.”
https://kalshi.com/markets/openaiceo/openai-new-ceo#openaiceo-24
Note that Kalshi also resolved their permanent CEO market to Altman Y / Emmett N prior to Thanksgiving.
Pretty clear that Emmett was not CEO on Thanksgiving, given Emmett statements and a consensus of credible reporting, as well as market resolutions on real-money platforms.
And your own statement in market rules that indicates: "Otherwise, it will resolve to NO." There's no further information in OpenAI's latest announcement that changes the situation.
@aenews I have a big event tomorrow morning and need to go to sleep early tonight. I'll check this on Sunday morning and probably will follow your advice, if it makes sense. See you then!
Emmet was not in the office doing CEO things on thanksgiving, of course. He came in sunday/monday to represent the board and help negotiate things with Sam, and spent the rest of his time as CEO not doing much. But it was still time as CEO!
They reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return as CEO, and it looks like after that negotiations were between Altman and D'Angelo until it was finalized sometime around the 29th.
Those negotiations were still very much ongoing on thanksgiving! We know this because the one tweet Altman sent between the "agreement in principle tweet" and the actual Official Announcement was on Thanksgiving!
Sam Altman did not spend his thanksgiving having a friendly non-work meal with the guy who fired him. They were still negotiating, and Sam was still not CEO.
There is no way that any paperwork was signed to remove Shear before negotiations were finalized. Sam didn't tweet a single thing after this until the deal was done a week later, and no one at OpenAI reported any sighting of him in the office. Brockman was in the office working, but Sam was clearly still negotiating with the board to finalize his return.
Why would they take Shear off the books early? Why have literally no one as CEO, instead of just telling Emmet to take it easy and then take him off the books once the negotations were finalized?
I don't see why this market would be at 17%, where similiar markets are a good deal higher for later dates:
We also have this announcement from Helen Toner of her official resignation on the 29th:
I don't think just deferring to the real money markets is reasonable. Kalshi objectively resolved their Altman market too soon on the "agreement in principle" tweet, everyone agrees that was a fuck-up and they're lucky the negotiations were finalized. Meanwhile Polymarket operates on UMA which is just a very convoluted crypto version of "resolves to market % at close". We should resolve markets on the best evidence we have, not how other sites resolved their markets.
This is all a bit silly, but it's a silly play money website and sometimes I find it fun to get into the mud and hash out the tiny details.
I think probably we'll never know exactly what day the paperwork was signed, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it was either on the 29th, or the day or two before. Does anyone honestly think they signed the paperwork a whole week before the statement and just spent the week editing the announcement wording?
Kalshi objectively resolved their Altman market too soon on the "agreement in principle" tweet, everyone agrees that was a fuck-up and they're lucky the negotiations were finalized.
No, they resolved based on Bloomberg reporting.
Meanwhile Polymarket operates on UMA which is just a very convoluted crypto version of "resolves to market % at close".
Incorrect. UMA has resolved against market price multiple times, in one case resolving the opposite direction for a market that was at >99c at time of proposal and >75c for vast majority of time before voting opened. In any case, majority of major traders all agreed that No was the correct resolution. The vote wasn't particularly contentious.
We should resolve markets on the best evidence we have, not how other sites resolved their markets.
Should review what prompted other platforms to resolve, and should take seriously what real-money platforms have determined. Also, the market rules indicate that in absence of further evidence, it will resolve to NO. Which is perhaps the most important thing to consider, here.
I don't see why this market would be at 17%, where similiar markets are a good deal higher for later dates:
The one that has a major price discrepancy is priced that way because market rules specifically are looking at the contracts themselves. There is minutia in the rules that affects the pricing. The other one has N at a higher price, as expected.
I agree that the other markets have more specific requirements, but I think that should be balanced out by them being for later dates by which maybe some paperwork could have been done unbeknownst to us.
I think in this case the fact that OP extended the resolution to wait for more evidence should mean that the evidence at the time of thanksgiving was not enough. And we have the same jokey tweets we had at thanksgiving in support of Emmet having not been CEO anymore.
I'll 100% grant he wasn't acting CEO, the dude went home and left it to Sam and Adam. But I think the fact that we know the exact day that Helen Toner resigned is a really significant data point!
I would expect that the entire official transition of power would happen on the same day. So that would mean on the 29th the old board was replaced by the new board, and the interim CEO was replaced by Sam, the new Permanent CEO.
Do you think that "no one" was CEO for a whole week?
@shankypanky Certainly the kind of thing that could happen in a situation like this! Shear definitely wasn't at the office giving out orders. But we know for sure that Greg was, because he was tweeting about being in the office constantly.
I had 66k locked up in the Permanent CEO market, so I was watching twitter and various tech sites and discords constantly looking for literally any sign that Sam was ever in the office. I couldn't find any shred of evidence of him doing anything except negotiating with the board until the 29th. If I could have, I'd have posted it to the comments on that market and gotten it resolved before the 29th.
It's valid to resolve a market based on announcement, of course. When a question is "who will be the next Senator from Pennsylvania", it's standard to resolve it Fetterman the day the election is called.
But if the question is "Was John Fetterman the Senator from Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving", then the answer is no because Fetterman won the election but he wasn't sworn in until January.
Ultimately up to @SteveSokolowski of course, I don't know how I ended up with such strong opinions on OpenAI when I barely knew anything about them before Sam was fired 😅
Do you think that "no one" was CEO for a whole week?
Well, yes. This is how it was interpreted on Polymarket, and I was in favor of doing so. Shear N was resolved prior to Thanksgiving, and Altman to be CEO was not resolved until the recent OpenAI announcement.
But I think the fact that we know the exact day that Helen Toner resigned is a really significant data point!
I don't think it is. Toner was part of the previous long-standing board, very different from Shear who was just interim CEO. His role as interim CEO did end prior to Thanksgiving.
It could be that the seat was vacant, or as stefanie suggested, on the formal back-end it may be that Altman was interim CEO in the time in between the announcements.
In the absence of other information, I don't see why we would not rely on Shear's own statements and a consensus of credible reporting (which I showed in my prior post). As far as I'm aware, no major news outlet has claimed that Shear was still the CEO on Thanksgiving.
I don't strongly disagree with the polymarket Shear resolution, with real money locked up I think it's reasonable to have a general rule of resolving to reporting and announcements in vague cases like this and not try to second-guess the tech reporters. Polymarket's deadline was also for the 26th, which was four more days in which paperwork could be signed!
But for play money, if Steve wants to resolve based on signed paperwork then I really am confident that no paperwork was signed by Thanksgiving, when we know Sam and Adam were still negotiating on Thanksgiving.
Maybe paperwork got signed Friday/Saturday/Sunday, which all would have been sufficient for Polymarket! I think that's much more likely than them immediately having Emmet sign something the moment an "agreement in principle" was reached.
Polymarket's deadline was also for the 26th, which was four more days in which paperwork could be signed!
Not relevant, because it resolved to N before Thanksgiving. It can only resolve to N if the criteria have already been satisfied, not satisfied at an arbitrary future time. The initial proposal to resolve was on the 22nd, and the dispute was graded a No based on that timestamp. Evidence from after that timestamp isn't incorporated.
But for play money, if Steve wants to resolve based on signed paperwork then I really am confident that no paperwork was signed by Thanksgiving, when we know Sam and Adam were still negotiating on Thanksgiving.
Rules don't state signed paperwork, nor is there any publicly available signed paperwork. What the rules state is that in the absence of new information suggesting otherwise, the market will resolve to No.
@aenews At first, I thought the articles were promising. But I looked at these articles, and those articles extrapolate too broadly based upon the source material.
At least three of them link to primary sources that say that Altman "will return" or some similar language, but the secondary source articles incorrectly state that he has returned, seemingly solely based upon that primary source.
I need to review additional comments here, but these articles, making extrapolations themselves, can't be used to resolve the market.