OpenAI’s board is reportedly in talks with Sam Altman, former president of Y Combinator and co-founder of OpenAI, to return to OpenAI as CEO as soon as this week.
This according to Bloomberg, which in a brief this morning — citing sources close to the matter — said discussions are underway between Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, a current OpenAI board member, and Altman — and possibly other board members as well.
According to Bloomberg, the board member (or members) and Altman are discussing a number of possible scenarios that could happen. In one, Altman would return as director on a transitional board. In another — or perhaps the same — former Salesforce Inc. co-CEO Bret Taylor could serve as a director on a new board. (Taylor’s name was mentioned as a possible future OpenAI board member in some reports over the weekend.)
Investors are also in the talks, Bloomberg reports, with Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital aggressively pushing for Altman’s return. The hope is to resolve the management crisis before Thanksgiving, so as to give OpenAI employees less uncertainty about the state of the company — and stop the broader bleeding.
If Altman were to return to OpenAI, he would likely decline to accept Microsoft’s offer to run a new AI research lab at the tech giant with Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s former president, who resigned in protest with Altman on Friday. Altman is said to have demanded “significant” management and governance changes at OpenAI as a condition of return, a demand shared by many OpenAI supporters – including Microsoft.
Today’s developments follow a memo sent by OpenAI Vice President of Global Affairs Anna Makanju late Monday, saying that OpenAI management had “intense discussions” with the board, Altman and interim CEO Emmett Shear, who took over the administration of OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, to try to reunify the company.
Shear has reportedly been kept in the dark for the most part, indicating to Bloomberg’s sources that he does not intend to stay on unless the board can clearly communicate its reasoning for abruptly firing Altman. Shear previously said in a memo to employees on Sunday that his first order of business would be to “hire an independent investigator to investigate the entire process that led to this point and create a full report.”
It’s been a wild ride at OpenAI since Altman’s firing on Friday.
Over the weekend, OpenAI’s management team and supporters began considering candidates to replace the board for Altman’s possible return. Meanwhile, the board conducted its own CEO search, eventually landing on Shear.
The OpenAI rankings are in widespread revolt. More than 700 of the company’s roughly 770 employees — including Sutskever, in an apparent change of heart — have signed a letter calling on the board to step down and reinstate Altman. Salesforce and Microsoft, among others, have tried to use the turmoil as a recruiting opportunity, offering matching compensation to any researcher who leaves OpenAI to join their research teams.
