Subsequent to the Dec 1, 2023 episode, multiple journalistic, regulatory, and legal investigations produced new, previously undisclosed information and controversies about Sam Altman and OpenAI that clearly became part of the public narrative.

1. New backstory details on Altman’s firing and conduct

   • In May 2024, reporting on OpenAI’s internal non‑disparagement and equity‑cancellation agreements revealed that departing employees who refused to sign broad gag clauses could lose vested equity; Altman was later accused of having misled the public about his awareness of this provision. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Also in May 2024, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner publicly detailed the board’s rationale for firing Altman, going far beyond the board’s original vague statement. She alleged that Altman withheld key information (e.g., about the launch of ChatGPT and his ownership of OpenAI’s startup fund), provided inaccurate information about safety processes, and that executives had reported "psychological abuse" and manipulative behavior, with employees fearing retaliation. She also linked this to a prior pattern of “deceptive and chaotic behavior” at his previous company, Loopt. (en.wikipedia.org)
     These specifics were not public at the time of the November 2023 board action and became widely cited in later coverage of OpenAI’s governance crisis, fitting Friedberg’s prediction that “new threads” in the backstory would enter the narrative.

2. Additional major controversies involving Altman and OpenAI

   • In January 2025, Altman’s sister filed a lawsuit accusing him of years of sexual abuse, a serious new personal controversy that was widely covered and explicitly tied in media coverage to his role as OpenAI’s CEO. (theguardian.com)
   • In 2025, the wrongful‑death lawsuit Raine v. OpenAI alleged that ChatGPT contributed to a teenager’s suicide and accused OpenAI and Altman of negligence in safety design and deployment choices (e.g., removing certain safeguards before launching GPT‑4o). The case, and the underlying chat logs and design decisions, became a prominent part of the public debate over OpenAI’s safety practices. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Regulators also opened investigations into the Microsoft–OpenAI relationship (e.g., UK Competition and Markets Authority and U.S. FTC probes), adding governance and competition concerns to the company’s public dossier beyond what was known in November 2023. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because substantial new, previously unknown details and controversies about both Altman’s conduct and OpenAI’s governance and safety practices were uncovered by journalists, former board members, regulators, and litigants—and these clearly became part of the mainstream narrative about the company—the prediction that ongoing investigations would reveal “all sorts of new threads” was borne out.