OpenAI's 'friction@' Inbox Empowers Altman to Cut Bureaucracy
rohanpaul_ai · x · 2026-08-14
To maintain startup-like speed, OpenAI uses a special friction@ inbox where employees can flag technical and process bottlenecks, according to Fortune.
This escalation path carries enough weight to override planned work, with CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman sometimes intervening directly. Fidji Simo formalized the process by pairing the inbox with monthly Slack updates to track resolutions.
Related event: OpenAI Launches 'friction@' Email to Combat Internal Bureaucracy(4 posts)→
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