If you disagree, I would argue you have a very sad view of the world, where truth and cooperation are inferior to lies and manipulation.
Arguing what is based on what should be seems maybe a bit questionable?
That is both what is and what should be. We tend to focus on the bad, but fortunately most of the time the world operates as it should.
I’d argue that you can find examples of companies that were untrustworthy and still won. Oracle stands out as one with a pretty poor reputation that nevertheless has sustained success.
The problem for OpenAI here is that they need the support of tech giants and they broke the trust of their biggest investor. In that sense, I’d agree that they bit the hand that was feeding them. But it’s not because in general all untrustworthy companies/leaders lose in the end. OpenAI’s dependence on others for success is key.
There's also mountains of research both theoretical and empirical that argue against exactly this point.
The problem is most papers on many scientific subjects are not replicable nowadays [0], hence my appeal to common sense, character, and wisdom. Highly underrated, especially on platforms like Hacker News where everything you say needs a double blind randomized controlled study.
This point^ should actually be a fundamental factor in how we determine truth nowadays. We must reduce our reliance on "the science" and go back to the scientific method of personal experimentation. Try lying to business partner a few times, let's see how that goes.
We can look at specific cases where it holds true- like in this case. There may be cases where it doesn't hold true. But your own experimentation will show it holds true more than not, which is why I'd bet against OpenAI