ChatGPT’s CEO, Sam Altman, was fired last week by the board of OpenAI, with reports of what happened next an ongoing tennis match of confusion – over the weekend, Sam Altman was in talks to come back as CEO, then reports emerged Microsoft hired him directly, and now there’s talk he’ll be back at OpenAI after all, so what’s going on?
OpenAI – the non-profit organisation that was set up to make AI safe for humanity, started operating OpenAI Global, the for-profit company that runs ChatGPT.
It’s enigmatic CEO, Sam Altman, has become the rockstar of AI, shepherding the amazing advances that have seen 2 million developers, 92% of Fortune 500 companies and over 100 million weekly active users embracing ChatGPT.
Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI and a board member, was part of the board that decided to fire Sam Altman last week, for reasons that vaguely related to poor communications and not malfeasance.
The firing has caused a revolt among OpenAI’s staff, with more than 90% of them threatening to walk, and its employees posting “OpenAI is nothing without its people” all over X.
Sam Altman was then in talks to come back to OpenAI as CEO over the weekend, on the proviso that the board which sacked him resigned. The board obviously did not want to resign despite the chaos they caused, and on Monday it was announced that Sam and some fellow now-former OpenAI staff were going to work for Microsoft directly to head up a new AI division, as Microsoft boss Satya Nadella explained during an interview with Bloomberg TV.
This caused even more waves internally at Microsoft, with the news now being that Sam Altman might still return to OpenAI as CEO after all, with the removal of the board as he wants, although with co-founder and board member Ilya Sutskever now expressing his regret at firing Sam and supporting his return to the company.
The saga has not ended yet, but OpenAI’s $90 billion dollar IPO is, at least temporarily, off the table, investors including Microsoft are very annoyed they weren’t consulted first, and there’s talk that Microsoft will insist on having a board member representing it and its US $13 billion investment into OpenAI once the dust settles.
My guess is that Sam will triumphantly return as OpenAI CEO and the ChatGPT bandwagon can get back on track, but this unexpected episode of “The Real Founders and Executives of Silicon Valley” has had several cliffhangers that aren’t resolved as yet!
