Summary:
- Sam Altman will not be returning as CEO of OpenAI after all, according to an internal memo sent by board director Ilya Sutskever. Altman had been fired on Friday, leading to protests from investors and employees.
- Emmett Shear, co-founder of Twitch, has been appointed as interim CEO as the search for a new permanent CEO continues.
- OpenAI’s decision to remove Altman and demote co-founder Greg Brockman reportedly angered Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, a major investor and partner of OpenAI.
- Several senior OpenAI researchers have left the company in response to the board’s decision to fire Altman and Brockman. Others threatened to quit if the pair weren’t reinstated.
- Sutskever said that removing Altman was necessary to protect the company’s mission of making AI beneficial to humanity. Altman had been pushing for significant managerial changes at OpenAI.
- Microsoft is unhappy with the outcome of the board’s decision, and the instability at OpenAI has led to a decrease in Microsoft’s market value.
- Several OpenAI employees have announced that they will be quitting the company in response to the recent events.
Ted’s Take:
Oh boy, it looks like OpenAI is facing some major drama. Sam Altman, who was fired as CEO and then had supporter rallying to have him reinstated, has decided to walk away from negotiations. Instead, OpenAI has appointed Twitch co-founder, Emmett Shear, as interim CEO. This decision has upset not only Sam Altman, but also Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI. The company’s instability has even caused Microsoft’s market value to drop. It seems like there was a clash of philosophies at OpenAI, with Altman’s commercial ambitions not aligning with the board’s vision of making AI beneficial to humanity. Looks like OpenAI is going through some major changes and it will be interesting to see how they navigate this situation going forward.
Original Article: https://techcrunch.com/?p=2631296
