In a dramatic turn of events late Friday, former Y Combinator president Sam Altman was fired by OpenAI’s board as CEO of AI startup OpenAI, the company behind viral AI hits like ChatGPT, GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Then the company’s longtime president and co-founder, Greg Brockman, resigned — as did three senior OpenAI researchers. And the disasters continue.
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It’s a rapidly evolving situation and we’re still trying to get to the bottom of it. No doubt more will become clear as time goes on. However, to make it easier to keep track of everything that’s happened in between, we’ve created a timeline. we will do our best to keep it up to date.
Timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI
November 16
Ilya Sutskever schedules a call with Altman
According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI and a co-founder, texted Altman on Thursday night about scheduling a call for noon on Friday.
Murati said of Altman’s firing
Brockman claims that Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO and now interim CEO, was informed Thursday night that Altman would be fired.
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November 17
Brockman was demoted
Brockman says he received a text from Sutskever shortly after noon Friday asking for a quick call. After sending a Google Meet link, Brockman was told he was stepping down from the board as chairman “but he was vital to the company and will retain his role” as chairman, and that Altman had been fired.
Altman’s dismissal was publicly announced
OpenAI published a blog post announcing the executive shake. The company’s management team was informed soon after.
Meeting of all hands
OpenAI held a plenary meeting Friday afternoon in which Sutskever defended Altman’s ouster. He dismissed suggestions that Altman’s pushback amounted to a “hostile takeover” and he claimed that it was necessary to protect OpenAI’s mission “to make artificial intelligence beneficial to humanity.”
Microsoft issues a statement
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, a major investor — and partner — in OpenAI, published a statement on Altman’s dismissal:
“As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we continue to innovate rapidly for this era of AI, with more than 100 announcements across the entire technology stack, from AI systems, models and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we are committed to delivering all of this to our customers while building for the future. We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap. and we remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to bring the significant benefits of this technology to the world.”
Brockman resigns
Brockman announced his resignation from OpenAI, citing “today’s news”. After sending a memorandum internally, he published the text in X.
Senior OpenAI researchers resign
Three senior OpenAI researchers are stepping down after Brockman, including director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of readiness Aleksander Madry.
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November 18
“No… in response to offenses”
In internal memo taken from Axios sent Saturday morning, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said yesterday’s announcement “took [the management team] surprised” and that management had “many conversations with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.” Discussions were ongoing as of Saturday morning, according to the memo.
“We can say with certainty that the board’s decision was not made in response to violations or anything related to our financial, business, or security/privacy practices,” Lightcap added. “This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board… We continue to share your concerns about how the process was handled, are working to resolve the situation and will provide updates as we can.”
OpenAI’s funding is at risk
OpenAI’s planned employee stock sale that would have valued the startup at around $86 billion could be in jeopardy. The Information, speaking to three sources previously with the company, References that they no longer expect the sale — led by Thrive Capital — to go through or, if it does, to have a lower valuation due to the recent turn of events.
Altman is planning a new venture
Altman has told investors he plans to start a new business, according in Information. Brockman is expected to join the effort – whatever form it takes. (Probably an AI chip startup.)
Investors are pushing for Altman’s return
Investors – furious at the turn of events – are reportedly putting pressure on OpenAI’s board to reinstate Altman, going so far as to hire Microsoft. Nadella is said to be sympathetic.
The board agrees to reverse course — in principle
The lip References that the board agreed in principle to step down and allow Altman and Brockman to return. However, a deadline was missed yesterday by which several OpenAI executives were to leave the company. Altman is said to be ambivalent about going back and calling for “significant” governance changes.
November 19
Altman will meet at OpenAI HQ
According to The Information, Altman is expected to meet at OpenAI’s headquarters in San Francisco as OpenAI executives push to reinstate him as CEO. Brockman has been invited to participate — but it’s unclear whether he will receive executives at that invitation.
Negotiations at the board ended in an impasse
Bloomberg References that Lightcap and Murati, among others, are pushing the board to reinstate Altman. But predictably, the filmmakers are resisting. As of noon Sunday, the board had not resigned amid concerns about who might replace them and was vetting candidates. A possible new addition could be Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.
Altman out, Shear in
Altman will not return as CEO, according to a report to The Information citing an internal memo sent by Sutskever. As the search for a new permanent CEO continues, OpenAI has appointed Emmett Shear, the co-founder of video streaming site Twitch, as interim CEO — replacing Murati.
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November 20
Altman joins Microsoft
Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and colleagues announce they will join Microsoft to lead a new AI research group. Nadella is leaving the door open to other OpenAI executives, saying they will be given the resources they need if they choose to join.
Sutskever’s mea culpa
Sutskever publishes a post on X indicating that he regrets his decision to remove Altman and will do everything in his power to bring Altman back as CEO.
Employees threaten to quit
Nearly 500 of OpenAI’s roughly 770 employees — including, notably, Sutskever — publish a letter saying they may resign unless the startup’s board resigns and re-appoints the ousted Altman. Later on Monday, that number rose to over 650.
Altman and Brockman are considering a return
As mentionted from The Verge, Altman’s move to Microsoft isn’t over — and both Altman and Brockman are still open to returning to OpenaI. That is, if the remaining members of the board of directors who fired him in the first place are removed.
OpenAI’s board is considering the merger
OpenAI’s board has approached Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of rival large-language modeling firm Anthropic, about a potential merger between the two companies, The Information References. The approach was part of an effort by OpenAI to convince Amodei to replace Altman as CEO — but Amodei quickly rejected the CEO’s offer.
