Of the three companies that have ever installed investor-overriding mission guardians in a for-profit structure, one ended in spectacular failure, one already melted down once, and the third filed confidentially an IPO on Monday.
A new Harvard Law paper, AI Corporate Governance and Ben & Jerry’s Risk, by professor Jesse Fried and S.J.D. candidate Idan Reiter, lands not just as Anthropic enters the public markets but at a moment when OpenAI’s governance is under more scrutiny than ever. A federal jury ruled against Elon Musk’s lawsuit on May 18; former board members testified about being misled by CEO Sam Altman; and the company faces multiple wrongful death lawsuits alleging ChatGPT contributed to self-harm and violence. Meanwhile, OpenAI completed its conversion to a public benefit corporation last October, a restructuring Fried argues doesn’t solve the underlying problem.
