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In, out, in again: Altman back at OpenAI after colleagues revolt in dramatic boardroom saga
OpenAI has rehired Sam Altman as CEO after a tumultuous week that saw his firing, employee revolt, and Microsoft offering him a position.
About 110 hours. That’s all the time it took OpenAI to fire Sam Altman, for the firm to appoint one interim CEO, then appoint another interim CEO, for Altman and OpenAI to discuss a shock return, for those talks to fail, for Microsoft to announce Altman’s hiring, and for 90% of OpenAI’s employees to revolt against his ouster.
But on Wednesday, the tempestuous waters of Silicon Valley appeared to settle as OpenAI rehired Altman, the pioneering tech savant who infused life into artificial intelligence with the blockbuster launch of ChatGPT.
The San Francisco-based firm confirmed their reunification with Altman in a post on X, apart from announcing that the board that fired him will be replaced.
“We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” said the statement, underscoring a major win for the 38-year-old entrepreneur.
The board, which replaces the one that fired Altman on Friday, will be led by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor. It will comprise former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers, and Quora chief Adam d’Angelo, who continues from the previous board.
And while Altman’s reinstatement caps a drama that rocked the tech community and captivated the world, it also represents a keystone in the AI era, bolstering the powers and sway of one legacy firm in particular — Microsoft.
The global tech giant holds a 49% stake in OpenAI. While Microsoft chief Satya Nadella has earlier argued his company only has a “non-controlling interest” in OpenAI, the four-day long turmoil underlined that the company holds enough influence to move not just investors, but also employees.
Nadella not only offered to hire Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman — who walked out after the former’s ouster — but his company also reportedly offered positions to OpenAI employees who chose to jump ship, according to an open letter the company’s staff signed on Monday.
“Microsoft has assured us there are positions for all OpenAI employees,” said the letter, which was signed by 700 of the AI firm’s 770 employees, who threatened to quit if Altman didn’t return.
Indeed, according to Bloomberg, Microsoft will “likely have representation on the new board, certainly as an observer and possibly with one or more seats”.
The company has been looking to embed AI into both its business and consumer-facing enterprises, with ChatGPT at the heart of this endeavour.
What still remains unclear is why Altman was fired, despite being the global face of AI after the launch of ChatGPT in November last year. Conversely, Microsoft’s vast computing power is essential for the growth of ChatGPT, and other allied services.
According to industry insiders, at the core of the issue may be a tussle between two divergent approaches to AI development — accelerationism and decelerationism. The former group (a philosophy that Altman is reportedly aligned with) seeks to speed up the development and growth of AI. The latter, however, seeks to modulate the technology, over a sense of pragmatism and concern, largely over AI’s potential for misuse.
Reportedly, there was disquiet within the OpenAI board over Altman’s approach and his keenness to hurtle ChatGPT down the growth path.
To be sure, OpenAI, in a statement on Saturday announcing Altman’s dismissal, said he “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities”.
Reports also said the company’s interim CEO Emmett Shear, who earlier led streaming service Twitch, played an important role in his predecessor’s return.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Shear called it the path that did “right by all”.
“I am deeply pleased by this result, after — 72 very intense hours of work. Coming into OpenAI, I wasn’t sure what the right path would be. This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved. I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”
Further, according to Bloomberg, the reworked OpenAI board will not be final. The board’s main priority is to select up to nine new directors, the news agency said, citing officials aware of the matter.
Bloomberg added that Altman agreed not to take a board seat initially in order to get the deal done. However, it is likely that he will enter the board at some point.
Altman also agreed to an investigation of his dismissal.
OpenAI’s earlier board members included D’Angelo, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Tasha McCauley of GeoSim Systems, and Helen Toner, director at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
