The company behind ChatGPT has obtained its third CEO in the last week, following a crisis that has sent shock waves through Silicon Valley.
Sam Altman has once more become the chief executive of OpenAI, the start-up behind the successful AI chatbot ChatGPT, only days after being fired from the firm. The return of the entrepreneur has been accompanied by a restructuring of the company’s board and the departure of some of the heads behind Altman’s sacking.
OpenAI’s board announced Altman’s firing on Friday 17 November after accusing the 38-year-old of failing to be “consistently candid in his communications” with its members. It did not give any further details about the alleged breaches of trust.
“Four times now in the history of OpenAI – the most recent time just in the last couple weeks – I’ve gotten to be in the room when we sort of push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward, and getting to do that is the professional honour of a lifetime,” he said.
Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s chair and president, was told on the same day that he was being removed from the company’s board. However, he chose to quit instead. OpenAI then appointed Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, as interim CEO, before offering the job to Emmett Shear, the former CEO of video game streaming platform Twitch. He held the position for three days.
The news of the sacking of the public face of ChatGPT shocked the whole of Silicon Valley. Shortly after the announcement was made, three senior researchers – Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Mądry and Szymon Sidor – also submitted their resignations, and the majority of the firm’s 770 employees signed a letter threatening to quit if Altman and Brockman were not reinstated.
“We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees,” said the letter, which surprisingly was also signed by the third co-founder and board member Ilya Sutskever.
Following negotiations – and a short period in which Altman was said to have joined Microsoft – the businessman was reinstated as chief executive of OpenAI.
“I am looking forward to returning to OpenAI,” Altman said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together.”
The CEO’s return came alongside the naming of new members to the company’s board, including former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and economics heavyweight Larry Summers, who was treasury secretary under US President Bill Clinton.
Out of the remaining board members who supported Altman and Brockman’s sacking, only Adam D’Angelo, the co-founder of the question-and-answer website Quora, will be staying as part of the board. Brockman also said he would be returning to the firm.
Altman’s return is expected to strengthen his grip on the start-up and may leave the ChatGPT creator with fewer checks on his power. OpenAI was originally founded as a non-profit company whose board oversees a commercial subsidiary in which Microsoft is the biggest investor.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said the company was “encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board”.
“We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed and effective governance,” he added.
OpenAI employee Cory Decareaux described the past week at the company as “crazier than I ever could have imagined” and “an example of what a united company culture looks like”.
The firm has announced it will conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances around Altman’s departure.
Source: E&T
