On November 22, it was announced that Sam Altman, who was fired from his position last week, will return to his role as CEO of OpenAI, putting an end to the drama that unfolded in the company’s boardroom, which captured the attention of media in Silicon Valley and revealed the intense struggles over who controls the future of artificial intelligence.
Details of the Agreement
The company will have an initial board of directors consisting of Bret Taylor, former chairman of Twitter before Elon Musk acquired it; Larry Summers, U.S. Treasury Secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency; and Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora and one of the board members who voted to oust Altman.
Recent Developments
Altman’s return was announced nearly a week after the chaos at the startup located in San Francisco, which has become a hub for the AI explosion. His firing on Friday shocked many tech leaders, including investors and OpenAI employees, who launched a campaign to bring him back. On Sunday, Altman went to OpenAI’s offices to negotiate, aiming to secure his return. Employees came in over the weekend to support him, staying for hours and ordering a meal of Chicken Nuggets and fries from McDonald’s to sustain them as the evening hours progressed. However, initial talks faltered and the board announced the appointment of a new interim CEO. Altman agreed to join Microsoft instead.
New Agreement Reached
This announcement led to nearly all of the company’s approximately 770 employees signing a protest letter, threatening to resign if he was not restored. Both Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella indicated they were still open to his return to OpenAI. On Tuesday, with the threats of chaos in the company escalating, the board reached a new agreement with Altman. The OpenAI announcement came around 10 PM Pacific Time. Excited employees gathered in a notable area of San Francisco to celebrate, raising glasses in tribute to their leader’s return, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Details of the New Agreement
Under the new agreement, Altman will not have a seat on the board, and the board agreed to conduct an independent investigation to examine all aspects of the recent events, including Altman’s role, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. Altman was dismissed, with the board stating only that he had not been candid in his discussions with board members. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Altman was also fired from his previous job as head of the Y Combinator startup accelerator four years ago.
Reasons for Altman’s Dismissal
Altman’s controversial past points to reasons for his dismissal from OpenAI. The initial three-member board of OpenAI will review and appoint an official board consisting of nine other members, according to another person familiar with the matter. Elia Sutskever, Helen Toner, and Tasha McCauley, the three other board members who voted to oust Altman, will leave the board, according to the same person. Emmet Shear, who was appointed as interim CEO, will also leave the company, according to the person familiar with the events surrounding Altman’s return.
Key Players in the OpenAI Boardroom Standoff
Sam Altman: Founded OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit research lab, he was ousted from his position as CEO on Friday. The AI startup announced on Tuesday that he will return to his role.
Bret Taylor: An IT expert who worked at Google and Facebook and was most recently co-CEO of Salesforce, a position he held until the beginning of this year. He was chairman of Twitter during Elon Musk’s acquisition, leading the legal battle to force Musk to complete his acquisition of the social media platform.
Larry
Summers: A former U.S. Treasury Secretary and economist during the Bill Clinton administration, he was the President of Harvard University until he resigned in 2006 after making controversial statements the previous year suggesting that women are not as capable as men in the fields of science and engineering. He has close connections in Silicon Valley and served as a special advisor to the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Satya Nadella: Offered Altman the position of head of Microsoft’s new artificial intelligence lab if he decided to leave OpenAI. The Microsoft CEO struck a deal with OpenAI to invest billions of dollars in the company earlier this year.
Emmett Shear: Appointed as interim CEO of OpenAI to replace Altman and Mira Murati, who held the interim CEO position for just two days. He co-founded the video game streaming platform Twitch.
Helen Toner: One of the four members of the OpenAI board who voted to oust Altman. An AI and national security researcher at Georgetown University, she advocates for ensuring appropriate safeguards in the AI industry. She has since resigned from the board.
Illya Sutskever: A respected AI researcher, he is a co-founder of OpenAI and was one of the board members who voted to oust Altman, a decision he later regretted. He is no longer a member of the board.
Greg Brockman: One of Altman’s co-founders at OpenAI and one of his closest aides. He resigned in solidarity with Altman on Friday, and when Altman was reinstated as CEO, he announced on X that he would return to OpenAI.
Kevin Scott: Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer and one of the most powerful executives in AI. He told OpenAI employees that he would hire them all if they decided to resign from the company due to Altman’s ousting.
Mira Murati: An early employee at OpenAI, she was the Chief Technology Officer until she was appointed as interim CEO following Altman’s ousting. She was replaced by Shear after two days. She supported efforts to bring Altman back to the company.
Vinod Khosla: An established venture capitalist and founder of Khosla Ventures, he is an early investor in OpenAI. He vocally opposed Altman’s ousting.
Tasha McCauley: A former board member of OpenAI and a technology entrepreneur, she also holds a position at the Center for AI Governance, a UK-based research institute examining the impact of AI.
Adam D’Angelo: A board member of OpenAI who voted to oust Altman. He was Facebook’s CTO in the company’s early years and later founded the Q&A site Quora.
The Future of OpenAI
The drama surrounding Altman’s sudden ousting from OpenAI has exposed a deep divide within the company over who should control its future. OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab, but in recent years under Altman’s leadership, it has received billions of dollars in investments from tech giants like Microsoft and venture capital, and it began developing consumer products. External critics and some employees have criticized the company for abandoning its mission and behaving more like a tech giant when it originally aimed to provide a transparent and democratic alternative to large tech companies.
The question of who will ultimately control OpenAI and its technology now rests with the three members of the board. It is unclear whether OpenAI’s public structure and its formal mission to create human-like AI for the benefit of all humanity will also change. However, the presence of a larger board and the presence of Taylor and Summers suggest that the future composition will be more similar to that of a traditional tech company, with highly experienced business leaders from various firms, as opposed to the previous board that included Toner and McCauley, who are experts in the impact of AI on society but have not led massive profit-driven firms.
It has
Summers vocally expressed his concerns about artificial intelligence, warning that it is likely to cause significant disruptions in the labor market sooner than many forecasters expect. He serves on the board of Block, the payment company founded by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, as well as Skillsoft Corp, a software company that has connected him with numerous Silicon Valley investors. Sheryl Sandberg, the former CEO of Facebook, began her career working with Summers at the World Bank and in the Clinton administration. A spokesperson for Summers did not provide an immediate comment on how he joined the board of OpenAI.
On Wednesday, the left-leaning watchdog group Project Veritas criticized OpenAI’s decision to add Summers to its board, arguing that his record of embracing the troubled cryptocurrency industry is “enthusiastic.” Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the project, stated, “There is no greater evidence that OpenAI does not take the interests of humanity seriously than the elevation of Larry Summers to its board.” Hauser said that Summers’ appointment “heightens concerns that artificial intelligence will be bad for everyone except the wealthy and better-connected among us.”
Taylor, another new member of the board, is no stranger to high-stakes corporate skirmishes. He led a successful legal battle to compel Musk to continue with the Twitter acquisition deal, which proved very profitable for Twitter investors, but he faced backlash from employees who did not want to work for Musk, and from service fans who believed the billionaire would ruin it.
Regardless of the final makeup of the board, Altman’s return will be welcomed by investors, clients, and employees who feared the drama in the boardroom could lead to the company’s collapse. If that occurs, it would leave a void at the heart of the artificial intelligence industry, opening the door for competitors like Google and the startup AI company Anthropic to gain momentum.
Microsoft, which is the largest investor in OpenAI and uses its technology in its own AI products, also benefits from OpenAI’s stability and Altman’s return.
Nadella stated in a post on X: “We are optimistic about the changes at OpenAI’s board. We believe this is a critical first step toward more stable, informed, and effective governance. We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering value in this next generation of artificial intelligence to our customers and partners.”
Contributors to this report: Alice Crites, Jeff Stein, and Cristiano Lima.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-back-openai/
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