On Friday, the board of OpenAI, the AI startup behind ChatGPT and other viral AI-based successes, did something unexpected but seemingly good: It ousted the company’s CEO, Sam Altman.
However, judging by how things turned out, it appears that OpenAI’s investors and partners — and many of its employees — were more comfortable with idea of the board’s power from the exercise of that power. And they didn’t count on the cult of personality around Altman, the former chairman of Y Combinator and a longtime fixture of Silicon Valley’s startup scene.
On Saturday night, a little more than 24 hours after OpenAI’s board of directors casually announced that Altman would be replaced by Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO, on an interim basis. multiple publications Reports surfaced suggesting that OpenAI’s board was in talks to bring Altman back to the helm.
What changed their minds? Investor fury and panic, no doubt — and ratings.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, a major OpenAI partner, was According to reports ‘Furious’ to learn of Altman’s departure’minutes” after it happened, and has reached out to Altman — and pledged his support — as supporters of OpenAI rookie Microsoft’s help in lobbying the board to reverse course. Meanwhile, some of OpenAI’s key venture capital backers are said to be considering a lawsuit against the board. No one, including Khosla Ventures and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a former OpenAI board member, was notified in advance of the decision to fire Altman.
Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla said the fund wants Altman back at OpenAI, but will support him in “whatever he does next.”
Microsoft in particular is highly leveraged. OpenAI has only received one fraction of the company’s recent $10 billion investment, according to Semafor, and a significant portion of the funding is in the form of cloud computing purchases instead of cash. Withholding those credits — and the rest of the cash investment — could leave OpenAI, which is hungry for capital as the cost of running and training AI systems rises, in a financially untenable position.
As the board considers its next move, top OpenAI AI researchers and executives are calling for it to step down.
On Friday, Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, resigned after the board removed him as chairman. Three senior OpenAI researchers left after Brockman, including director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of readiness Aleksander Madry. And more employees are According to reports submit their resignations.
They see 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 meeting on Friday that he felt Altman’s removal was “necessary” to protect OpenAI’s mission to “make artificial intelligence beneficial to humanity,” suggesting that Altman’s commercial ambitions for the company began to worry the kings of the board. (The OpenAI board is technically part of a non-profit organization that governs OpenAI’s monetization strategy.)
But Many in the tech community – and obviously OpenAI – felt the opposite. His outpouring high profile support because Altman was direct.
And so, as Altman and Brockman getting closer Investors about a new venture centered on the artificial intelligence chip and the sale of shares of OpenAI employees face an uncertain future, the board of directors has an uncomfortable face in front of it. Sutskever and the rest of the board — tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley. and Helen Toner, the director of strategy at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies — may have felt their decision to fire Altman was right and justified. But it seems it wasn’t really their decision.
