The Quiet Silicon Valley Insider Complicating Sam Altman’s Return

Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, one of the central figures in the power struggle over OpenAI, has gained a reputation for stubbornness among Quora employees, a facet of his personality that may be playing into the debate on OpenAI’s board about whether to reinstate Sam Altman as CEO.

At the question-and-answer site, there was “never” an example where an employee convinced D’Angelo to change his position, a former Quora employee said. Another former employee said it was hard to earn D’Angelo’s trust but it could be lost quickly. Considered a brilliant engineer committed to disseminating better information on the internet, he kept a low profile and resisted attempts to invest in marketing or media relations for the site, which could draw in more users. And for years, he kept only one additional voting board member at Quora, friend and investor Matt Cohler of Benchmark.