> But if left too long they can amass too much power as the bully can manipulate enough people to vote for him

That feels exactly like why the board did what they did. Reading between the lines of everything that has been published, the actual sin that led to Altman's firing seems obvious:

(1) Altman went to a board member and proposed something that would decrease the board's power over him (probably kicking someone off the board)

(2) That board member tells other board members about the conversation

(3) Board asks Altman if he had that conversation. Altman denies it

(4) Board fires him for lack of candid communication with board

(5) Board doesn't explicitly say what happened publicly, because it's inside baseball. But they absolutely know it did happen, because it they were first parties to it

This feels less about safety vs commercialization (in the immediate future) and more about not having faith in a CEO caught in a lie while trying to remove oversight.

Absolutely. Also reporting these out of the ordinary behaviors before they become problematic is also a way to keep these guys in line. Once they see that you have a systematic way to report (replace report with "ask if this is normal practice within the company"), they’ll avoid you.