In OpenAI's early days, a tech visionary pushed for its creation amid worries that major tech firms were sidelining AI safety. The company started as an open-source, non-profit venture. Yet somewhere along the way, leadership shifted the entire operation—transforming it into a closed-source, profit-driven enterprise. That pivot raises questions: when mission-driven organizations pivot to closed models and commercial incentives, can stakeholders still rely on their original principles? It's a tension worth examining in today's AI landscape.