After a few days of OpenAI captivating the entire tech industry, Sam Altman is set to return to OpenAI as CEO. All that drama for nothing? In the chaos of everything that happened, you might have missed a few details. Here is a full rundown of what has happened in OpenAI.
When Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, took the company to a $80+ billion valuation, the last thing he probably expected was being fired from his own company! He was in Las Vegas for the weekend to watch the F1 race when he received a Google Meet link, one that would leave the entire tech world talking. 30 minutes after that call, the board of directors at OpenAI, released a statement stating that Sam Altman will depart as CEO and leave the board of directors. It read, "he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board" and "the board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI." You can read the full statement here. Shortly after Sam Altman was told, OpenAI board chairman and president Brockman was invited to a Google Meet to inform him of Altman's removal as well as his own removal from the board. Unhappy with their decision and way of handling things, Brockman resigned from the company entirely.
They also announced that Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer, was stepping in as the interim CEO while they conducted a search for a permanent CEO.
When people learnt about the board's decision, they weren't happy. There was a huge outpour of love and support for Sam Altman. The tech world was shocked and investors at OpenAI began campaigns to reinstate Altman. Bloomberg News reported that Microsoft and Thrive Capital were on a mission for Altman's comeback. The Information added that Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital hopped on the bandwagon.
The board that fired Sam Altman (source: WSJ)
Microsoft, apparently, had three plans in mind. The first was to back Mira Murati, OpenAI's CTO, step in as the CEO for a brief stint, hoping to convince the higher-ups to rethink their decision or at least spill the beans on why they made it. Then, using their influence as the biggest investor, they tried to bring Altman back into the mix. In the end, they went with Plan C and brought Altman on board, along with anyone else keen on rebuilding things under Microsoft's umbrella.
On November 19, Altman and Brockman showed up at OpenAI's HQ for some talks, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella playing the role of a mediator. As reported by Bloomberg News, Murati, Kwon, and COO Brad Lightcap were advocating for a fresh board of directors. The catch: Altman needed the board to clear him of any wrongdoing to make a comeback.
The board definitely loved surprising people because about 60 hours after the initial removal, they made another unexpected move. They named former Twitch chief executive Emmett Shear as OpenAI's chief executive instead of reinstating Altman. That's when Microsoft announced that Altman would be joining Microsoft to run a new AI research team joined by Brockman, Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, essentially has a 49 percent stake in the company.
The next day, 700+ out of OpenAI's 770 employees led by Mira Murati, threatened mass resignation if the board did not resign. They had an offer by Nadella to join Altman's team in Microsoft. One of those who signed the document was board member Sutskever (who is also OpenAI's chief scientist), who jumped ship from the board and publicly expressed regret for his involvement in the board's prior decisions.
The open letter that the employees of OpenAI signed
Losing most of their employees seemed pretty daunting to the board because on November 21st, they finally announced they had reached an agreement in principle for Altman to be reinstated with an interim board. The interim board consisted of Taylor, D'Angelo and economist Lawrence Summers with Taylor as the chief of the board. As a part of the deal, Altman and Brockman will not get back their seats in the board. Altman also agreed to an internal investiagtion into his alleged conduct due to which he was fired in the first place.
Altman's removal was extremely worrying for the entire AI industry as The Economist wrote that the removal could slow down the artifical intelligence industry as a whole. Being one of their biggest investors, shares in Microsoft fell nearly three percent following the announcement. The value of WorldCoin, a type of crypto co-founded by Altman, fell by 12%. After hiring Altman, Microsoft's stock price rose over two percent to an all-time high.
While all of this drama was happening, they were live tweeting (or X-ing?) it. Here's the story via tweets:
Is it happily ever after for OpenAI and Sam Altman?
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