On Friday, the board of OpenAI, the ai startup behind ChatGPT and other ai-powered viral hits, did something unexpected but apparently within its rights: oust the company’s CEO, Sam Altman.
But judging by how the situation unfolded, it seems that OpenAI’s investors and partners (and many of its employees) became more comfortable with the idea of the power of the board than the exercise of that power. And they didn’t count on the cult of personality surrounding Altman, the former president of Y Combinator and a longtime member of the Silicon Valley startup scene.
On Saturday night, just over 24 hours after OpenAI’s board of directors unceremoniously announced that Altman would be replaced by OpenAI CTO Mira Murati on a temporary basis, multiple publications published reports suggesting that OpenAI’s board of directors was in talks to bring Altman back at the helm.
What made you change your mind? Investor anger and panic, no doubt, and irritated lines.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, a major OpenAI partner, was reportedly “Furious” upon learning of Altman’s departureminutes“After it happened, and has been in contact with Altman, and committed to supporting him, as sponsors of OpenAI (in ai.html”>particular Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital) recruit Microsoft’s help to put pressure on the board of directors to change course. Meanwhile, some of OpenAI’s biggest venture capital backers are said to be contemplating a lawsuit against the board; None, including Khosla Ventures and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a former OpenAI board member, were given advance notice of the decision to fire Altman.
Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla said the fund wants Altman to return to OpenAI, but will support him in “whatever he does next.”
Microsoft in particular has a lot of influence. OpenAI has received only one fraction of the company’s recent $10 billion investment, according to Semafor, with a significant portion of the funding coming from cloud computing purchases rather than cash. Withholding those credits (and the rest of the cash investment) could leave OpenAI, which is starved for capital as the costs of running and training its ai systems rise, in a financially unsustainable position.
As the board considers its next step, OpenAI’s top ai researchers and executives are resigning.
On Friday, Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, resigned after the board stripped him of his position as president. Three senior OpenAI researchers left after Brockman, including research director Jakub Pachocki and head of training Aleksander Madry. And there are more employees reportedly present their resignations.
They perceive it as a power struggle with unacceptable levels of collateral damage between two board members in particular, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo and Sutskever, and Altman. Sutskever said during a company all-hands meeting on Friday that he felt removing Altman was “necessary” to protect OpenAI’s mission of “making ai beneficial to humanity,” suggesting that Altman’s business ambitions for the company were beginning to unsettle the kingmakers on the board. (OpenAI’s board of directors is technically part of a nonprofit organization that governs OpenAI’s monetization strategy.)
But many in the tech community, and apparently at OpenAI, felt otherwise. The spilling of high profile support because Altman was immediate.
And so, like Altman and Brockman getting closer Investors in a startup focused on ai chips and the sale of OpenAI employee shares face an uncertain future, the board of directors has an uncomfortable change of course ahead. Sutskever and the rest of the board of directors: technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley; and Helen Toner, director of strategy at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging technology, may have felt that their decision to fire Altman was correct and justified. But it seems like it really wasn’t his decision.
For example, The Verge reported Saturday night that the board had agreed in principle to resign… technology/sam-altman-openai-board.html”>doing tech/openai-trying-to-get-sam-altman-back-4b728049″>room, perhaps, for a Microsoft-aligned member, and to allow Altman and Brockman to return. Altman is reportedly “ambivalent” about returning and would want “significant” management changes, according to The Verge’s sources; The Wall Street Journal tech/openai-trying-to-get-sam-altman-back-4b728049″>reports that Altman told his associates that it was “ridiculous” that major shareholders had no say in OpenAI’s governance.
Since then, the board has dithered, missing a deadline last night by which many OpenAI employees were required to leave the company, The Verge reports. But its fate (and the fate of OpenAI’s structure) would seem to be all but sealed.
