Sam Altman Roller Coaster Ride: The Story of How He Was Removed and Rehired
Sam Altman, the co-founder, and CEO of OpenAI, the world’s leading artificial intelligence company, has been reinstated as the head of the organization after a dramatic week that saw him being fired by the board of directors and then supported by the employees and the biggest investor, Microsoft.
Sam Altman Saga of How He Was Removed and Rehired
The saga began on Friday, November 17, when Sam Altman joined a video conference call with the board, excluding his co-founder and president Greg Brockman. He was informed by the chief scientist Ilya Sutskever that he was being fired and that the news would be announced soon. Sutskever also told Brockman that he was removed from the board, but invited him to stay at the company.
The board’s decision was based on the accusation that Altman had been “not consistently candid in his communications” with them, according to a statement released by the board. The board did not specify what Altman had lied about, but some sources suggested that it was related to his involvement in Tools For Humanity, a company that he co-founded in 2019, which builds and distributes systems to scan people’s eyes to provide authentication and verify proof of personhood.
The board’s move was met with strong resistance from the employees and the investors of OpenAI, especially Microsoft, which had invested more than $11 billion into the company. The employees threatened to quit en masse if Altman was not reinstated, and Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella personally intervened to persuade the board to reverse its decision.
After days of intense negotiations and pressure, the board announced on Tuesday, November 21, that it had reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO. The agreement also included replacing all the board members who fired Altman except for Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, who remained on the board. The new board chair is Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce. Also on the new board are Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
Altman and Brockman will not immediately retake their seats on the board but will remain involved in the company’s operations. Sutskever will reportedly step down from the board but stay at the company as the chief scientist.
The board also reaffirmed its commitment to OpenAI’s legal structure, which is a capped-profit company overseen by a non-profit board that has the legal freedom to make decisions that may not align with the interests of investors. Altman established this structure in 2019 to help OpenAI raise more capital while mitigating the perceived risks to humanity of corporate control over artificial intelligence.
OpenAI is the maker of ChatGPT, the sensational chatbot that can generate realistic and engaging conversations on any topic. It also has a mission to safely develop smarter-than-human AI that can benefit all of humanity.
Sam Altman is a prominent entrepreneur and investor, who also co-founded Ethereum and created Solidity, the language for smart contracts on Ethereum. He also worked as a research scientist at Microsoft.
Altman said that he was grateful for the support he received from the employees and the investors and that he was looking forward to continuing his work at OpenAI. He also apologized for any mistakes he made and said that he learned a lot from the experience.
