OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman has resigned from the company, he said Friday, hours after the Microsoft-backed giant abruptly fired its CEO, Sam Altman, and assured that Brockman would remain at the startup. Brockman’s sudden departure adds to the uncertainties of the day at OpenAI, coming on the heels of its first developer conference led by Altman.
Brockman said in a series of tweets that Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI, informed Altman about a Friday call at noon on Thursday night. On the call, Sutskever and the rest of OpenAI’s board members told Altman that he had been fired.
“As far as we know, the management team found out about this shortly after, except for Mira, who found out the night before,” Brockman wrote. Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, has been named interim CEO of OpenAI, the startup said today.
OpenAI previously said Brockman would step down as chairman but would remain with the company. Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, is a close confidant of OpenAI’s former CEO. He said Friday that the board wanted him to continue, but he had decided to resign and was saddened by the direction of the board.
OpenAI and Microsoft, which is not on the startup’s board but owns about half of the company, remain tight-lipped about what led to Altman’s ouster from the startup, whose great language model boosted/supercharged the career of the ai.
The couple’s departure has caused commotion in Silicon Valley. Altman has been the public face of the startup, which is not only estimated to lead the current ai race, but in less than a year has also assumed the position of kingmaker for countless other startups building on the offerings. from OpenAI.
“I am very proud of what we have all built together since I started in my apartment 8 years ago. We have been through difficult and fantastic times together, achieving so much despite all the reasons why it should have been impossible,” Brockman wrote in a message to the OpenAI team. “But according to today’s news, I resigned. I truly wish you all nothing but the best. “I continue to believe in the mission of creating safe AGI that benefits all humanity.”
Earlier Friday, OpenAI said Altman had left the company after losing the trust of the board of directors. OpenAI said Altman would leave the company after a “deliberative review process” by the board “concluded that he” was not consistently candid in communications “with the board, which hampered” his ability to exercise his powers. responsibilities”.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after OpenAI held its first developer conference, where Altman shared that ChatGPT had amassed 100 million users. Microsoft boss Satya Nadella, who was one of the key guests at the conference, said: “We love you guys.” In a later interview with the FT, Altman said he hoped to raise “a lot more” from Microsoft and other investors in the future.
“We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our association, and to Mira and the team. “Together, we will continue to bring the significant benefits of this technology to the world,” Nadella said in a statement Friday.
