American techie Nik Pash fired from Cline over ‘imagine the smell’ remark joins Sam Altman’s OpenAI
Former Cline AI head Nik Pash has joined Sam Altman’s OpenAI after being fired over his “imagine the smell” remark about a picture of the xAI Hackathon, which triggered a massive backlash on social media.Nik Pash joins OpenAI after being fired from AI startup Cline. (LinkedIn/Nik Pash)People slammed Pash after he wrote “Imagine the smell” on a picture of hundreds of people sitting in a room working to win the tech event.About the controversy:Initially, the founder of Cline, Saoud Rizwan, tweeted in support of Pash, adding that his tweet was taken the wrong way. He wrote, “Hey all, I’m founder/ceo at Cline and of south asian descent myself. Fun story cline was started at a hackathon which in fact was quite smelly. I work with Pash everyday and can confirm this tweet was taken the wrong way.” Pash reacted and tweeted, “Appreciate it Saoud! Hackathons with packed rooms never smell great.”However, just a few days later, Rizwan announced that Pash had been fired. Following this, the Cline founder deleted all his social media posts related to the controversy.After being laid off, Pash, however, shared a tweet. “I took the last 24 hours to collect my thoughts after being let go from Cline.”“The first thing that struck me was my overwhelming gratitude and love for my former team. I love all of you, and you didn’t deserve any of this. We’ve been through a lot together and you are some of the coolest, down to earth, and competent people I know.”He continued, “I’m also blown away the kindness and graciousness of the people who have reached out to support me, both publicly and privately. I haven’t responded to anyone yet, but please don’t think I am ignoring you. I was just laying low for a bit.”At that time, he also expressed uncertainty about his future, expressing, “I don’t know what will happen next, but I intend for it to resolve positively for everyone involved.”His LinkedIn profile now shows that he joined OpenAI in January this year. In 2019, he also worked at Meta as a software engineer.
