Leadership. What is it? Who does one expect to exhibit it? Military officers get a solid grounding in leadership. But should a corporate president exhibit leadership? What about the Chief Executive Officer of a billion dollar company? Or is what they’re expected to do something different from leadership — management, maybe? Profit maximization?

Most military veterans intuitively understand that how a person gets described in the media does not always correspond with their actual abilities. Wealthy and influential figures such as Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos fame) and Sam Bankman-Fried are heralded as “visionary leaders” when they were and are, in fact, no more imaginative (and much less dexterous) than your average Whitehall shell game hustler — people who undermined faith in the system through arrogance and greed.

With Sam Altman poised to return to OpenAI, we consider the problems of that imbroglio from a military context. Altman (and OpenAI) may never be the same.

THE BIG STORY

All The King’s Horses And All The King’s Men

The chaos at OpenAI, where Sam Altman’s firing as CEO has provoked a mutiny, is evidence of bad leadership.

In July of 2011, returning from a ruck with one of my company’s platoons, I encountered my 1SG outside the company CP. He was very upset about something, and said I needed to report to the Battalion Commander’s office immediately. 

The 1SG and I were very different people. I admired and respected him, and we enjoyed a mutual professional respect based on the shared experience of a kinetic deployment to Afghanistan. So he told me what worried him while we were walking. He said that the Battalion Commander had decided to relieve all the company commanders who’d deployed but who had not elected to remain in the military. That was myself, and two other commanders.

The previous Battalion Commander — with whom I got along very well — had said that I could stay in command until I left the military — to retire from command, a kind of thanks for my service, and an opportunity to train my company for future deployments. But the incoming commander had no intentions of honoring that promise. Moreover, he had a very different vision for leadership of a light infantry company, focused on combatives and warrior ethos rather than rucking, running, and marksmanship. I knew as soon as I heard that it would be futile to argue the BC’s decision, though it would have been nice to feel like there was a conversation to be had. Walking up to the BC’s office, still drenched with sweat and somewhat absurdly wearing combat boots with my PT uniform (a uniform that was acceptable for rucking in the summer), thoughts like these swirled through my mind.

How had my 1SG gotten involved in this? I was out on a long ruck, so when the BC couldn’t get ahold of me, he grabbed my 1SG to stand in my stead alongside the other two commanders, and delivered the news to him. I can’t say this particular BC was a toxic leader — I had the misfortune of serving with a toxic leader before, and this sort of thing, firing me through my 1SG, was characteristic of his impulsive and poorly-conceived decisions — one could not get too upset by his blunders, even when they affected oneself. I will say that I feel grateful never to have served with him in combat, where his comically inept choices would have probably had a much worse effect on the unit. Some of his other gaffes: forgetting hail and farewells, badmouthing the Brigade Commander behind his back to subordinates, plus a litany of other smaller oversights, missteps, and outright offenses.

But my 1SG hearing of my removal from the BC struck my chief NCO (a scrupulous man) as insulting bordering on disgraceful. That he should have to fire me by proxy and on a whim was equal parts confusing and upsetting. Things like chain of command mattered greatly to my 1SG, and I never saw him more frustrated than I did on the day he had to fire me. 

Or, not quite fire me — that awaited me in the BC’s office, where I was told that I’d be changing command in a few days, to make room for other officers who were staying in the Army. 

I’d had my year, which felt important. One of the other commanders was cut short at 7 months with no recourse. The other had commanded HHC, but was some months short of his full 12 — necessary for a solid rating and his future career. As it happened he was on very good terms with the post’s Commanding General, a call to which resulted in my BC doing an about-face later that day and walking back his decision to remove him a commander. 

This is the only time I’ve seen something like that happen, a person removed from command and then reinstated, and it only worked because the only people who knew about the firing and the un-firing were the people in the room, plus my 1SG. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been anything for it — the arrow would have left the bow.

Friday, November 17, an announcement rocked the business world: the board of one of tech’s darlings, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, had voted to fire Sam Altman, its CEO. Sunday, November 19, Altman was attempting to negotiate his return. Monday, November 20, over 500 of OpenAI’s 700 employees condemned the board’s decision, and threatened to move to Microsoft to work with Altman unless he and Greg Brockman were reinstated. Finally, yesterday, the board and Altman seem to have come to an agreement — Altman would return, with a (mostly) new board, with the board that fired him (mostly) resigning.

In the modern military, everything that happens does so for the good of the unit. There is no person who is so brilliant that they are critical to a unit or military’s success. Even though my last Battalion Commander was sort of shambolic and disorganized, and inspired no confidence in his subordinates who, following his lead, mocked and disparaged him behind his back at every opportunity (though unlike him, this disparagement was made privately and away from soldiers’ ears), nobody lodged complaints against him while serving. Nobody conspired to have him removed, nor did they attempt to damage his reputation. Had we gone to combat together, folks like myself would have committed ourselves to the mission with great gusto, regardless of his performance (for good or for ill).

Part of this is because the military is structured to insulate leaders from their own bad decisions — what appears to a subordinate to be a bad decision could be part of a strategy that is obscure even to the leader. And individuals may want not to go to battle when the battlefield does not favor their advance. Insubordination can’t be an option.

Principles of leadership in the military are designed for a person of mediocre or modest charisma and talent (as the military is designed to function based on the mean, rather than the exceptional) serving alongside their soldiers and earning their respect. Under normal circumstances, it is unthinkable that even a sizable minority of a unit would want a leader removed, let alone a majority of leaders. This only occurs in exceptional cases, which is why it is news when a general or admiral is forced to relinquish their post based on loss of confidence for their leadership.

One of the observations I made during my time in the military was that the military selects for and prefers mediocre talent for leadership; again, this is what the system is designed for. Using a scale of 1-10, 1 being the worst leader one can imagine, and 10 being the best, the military (as a system) would like leaders who are 5s and 6s, with perhaps the occasional 7. It tolerates many 4s, though 3 or lower are unacceptable. To put it in “innocent until proven guilty” terms, which is to say, a justice system where it is better to let a guilty man go free than imprison an innocent man, the U.S. military would rather pass on strategic masterminds than put a total incompetent in charge. This makes sense, the military is giant — enough 6s and 7s can approximate something approaching brilliance. And 4s probably won’t do too much damage, in such a large organization.

This is the genesis of the idea that “everyone is replaceable” in the military — everyone is, in fact, replaceable, they have to be. A plan or unit cannot depend on a single person.

At OpenAI, they seemed to have the notion that Sam Altman was, in fact, replaceable, and attempted to replace him. The firing seems to have been done idealistically, over conflicting visions for the company and its role in the world. OpenAI’s board of scientists and tech-leaders saw the company’s mission as needing to be sustainable and measured. Altman and his supporters wanted to “boom” OpenAI and open things up as much as possible. Critically, money does not seem to have been a direct motive for the firing — though money (or the lack thereof) seems to have played a role in bringing Altman back.

What’s most surprising about the OpenAI controversy wasn’t that their CEO was fired — this happens all the time in business, for a variety of reasons — it’s that anyone could imagine (from a leadership perspective) that it would be plausible to return him to the company after he was fired. There seems to be no conception of leadership at OpenAI as one understands the idea in the military. And with Altman back in charge, the world will soon see the consequences.

TOP READS IN MONEY & FINANCE

What I want to know is how Binance is going to pay the fine here, all they have is crypto (worthless, fake money).

Palantir continues its dominance in the realm of providing data support to the government and military.

A single bad wood pellet trade may have doomed the biggest U.S. exporter of the fuel. Guess they’re hoping for a cold winter!

TOP READS IN THE MILITARY & FOR VETERANS

Hero.

This is the wrong way to hunt for submarines. Bad plane! Bad! Go back in the sky!

Midshipmen are honoring America’s submarine force in this year’s Army/Navy game. Still holding out for the Midshipmen to honor the 173rd Airborne Brigade!

Always like to hear when the AC-130 gunship gets a chance to help martyrs to the afterlife.

Replicator is a disturbing title for a program to deploy thousands of autonomous drones!

TOP READS AROUND THE WORLD

This lawsuit makes no sense to me, but anyway, Elon Musk is suing Media Matters about it (and is likely to lose).

Grim news from Ukraine as it fights on against stiff odds in their east — courageous to the last.

Sunnier news from Israel, where a deal to exchange hostages and prisoners could mean a step closer to the end of the war in Gaza. But what next?

HUMOR

Pound for pound one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while.