OpenAI has two real competitors: Anthropic in the enterprise space and Google in the consumer space. Google fell far behind early on and ceded a lot of important market share to ChatGPT. They're catching up, but the runaway success of ChatGPT provides OpenAI with a huge runway among consumers.
In the enterprise space, OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft has been a gold mine. Every company on the planet has a deep relationship with Microsoft, so being able to say "hey just add this to your Microsoft plan" has been huge for OpenAI.
The thing about enterprise is the stakes are high. Every time OpenAI signals that they're not taking AI safety seriously, Anthropic pops another bottle of champagne. This is one of those moments.
Again, I doubt it matters much either way, but if OpenAI does end up blowing up, decisions like this will be in the large pile of reasons why.
Claiming Dario is the bad guy in any context is kind of a tough characterization to agree with, if even a fraction of one interview with him has been seen.
To stay on point though: OpenAI hiring OpenClaw creator does seem to lean away from a serious enterprise benefit and towards a more consumer-based tack, which is a curious business move considering the original comments perspective of OpenAI.