What Sam Altman Can Get Away With Now

The deposed tech CEO returning to his company triumphant is enough of a Silicon Valley trope that they made it part of the HBO sitcom literally called Silicon Valley. Thomas Middleditch's character wants to build a consumer-facing product, and his startup's board of directors wants to sell to businesses, and Middleditch's character gets fired and goes away until the board is ready to do what he wants. He comes back after a few weeks, probably, although it's hard to say on account of it not being real. More famously, Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985 after a board struggle that resulted in his being pushed out. Jobs needed 12 years, and Apple's decision to buy a company he'd started in the meantime, to come home in 1997.