Recently OpenAI has had some troubles. It fired the CEO. Then the hundreds of people that work at the company signed a letter saying the board needed to rehire the CEO, then step down as board members, otherwise they were all quitting. Lot’s of drama played out for a few days. The CEO was rehired and the board had a number of resignations.

It’s a weird company structure. The company itself is set up as a non-profit and the board were tasked with the overseeing the responsible, safe development of Artificial Intelligence. But in order to pay for all those engineers and things like rent, server space and snacks, it set up what is called a capped-profit organization. Basically a company that is not a non-profit that can raise money from investors. The idea was that the for profit part of the company would work towards the goals of the non profit, capping the amount of money allocated to investors and employees. Lofty goals.

It was working really well until $90 Billion dollars showed up.

Well, $90 Billion dollars didn’t just happen to find it’s way into the OpenAI savings account. That’s what the company was seeking out as a valuation. And that is what the company would base the price of it’s shares upon. So if you are an employee and you have some share options, you are probably thinking it’s good for your retirement planning to have your shares be part of a $90 Billion dollar valuation. Mission statements are fine and all, but $90 Billion is a lot of money. Let’s go with the money option.

Technology companies see education differently than most of us involved in the day to day operations of teaching kids to read, write and be decent little human beings. They tend to be a little less altruistic. Tech companies see education as a market. It might make sense from a marketing standpoint to post on their website aspirational goals they have in making every child a better human being. What they don’t say in the big print, is that this is conditional on someone paying the invoice.

So what did the misadventures of OpenAI in the past few weeks show us about the future of technology and education? To understand this, you have to first think about all the spouses, partners, boyfriends, girlfriends and hangers around who are not in education themselves but are mixed up closely with someone who is in education. Know why they hate going to parties where there is going to be a bunch of educators gathered together? Because the only thing educators talk about is students, classroom set ups, resources they use, students…. And why do educators do that? It’s because each of us in education have our own, yet shared, mission statement which is doing the absolute best for our students to help them read, write, learn and be good people, even if it means spending evenings and weekends planning. Artificial Intelligence is coming into our schools and classrooms whether we like it or not. It is following the money. And that may not align with our mission statements.