Following his shock firing on Friday, currently-former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman won’t be as out of a job as we initially thought he was, in accordance with new phrase from The Verge on Saturday. Reportedly, sources near Altman say that the board itself, in a surprising reversal, have “agreed in principal” to resign whereas reinstating him to his former place. Nevertheless, the board has since reportedly missed a 5pm PT deadline relating to the choice.
Shortly after Altman’s firing on Friday afternoon, a number of senior staffers together with former Chairman and President Greg Brockman, Director of Analysis Jakub Pachocki, Head of Preparedness Aleksander Madry and Senior Researcher Szymon Sidor tendered their resignations in protest. Quite a few further OpenAI staffers had been set to give up in solidarity at that assembly. They’re reportedly keen to comply with Altman, a la Jerry Maguire, to a brand new AI startup enterprise ought to he resolve to launch one.
An inside memo circulated after Altman’s dismissal argued that his termination was not associated to “malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” per Axios’ reporting.
Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.
Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAI, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out.
We too are still trying to figure out exactly…
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023
Microsoft is a major investor in the OpenAI venture — having injected some $10 billion into the project’s coffers this past January as part of a long term partnership between the two. It maintains the “utmost confidence” in OpenAI interim-CEO Mira Murati, and “stays assured” in the partnership overall.
Despite those assurances, rank-and-file employees were given little notice prior to the official announcement going out (Altman himself receiving even less) of the change in leadership. Altman had, in the days leading up to his termination, remained an active supporter and recruiter for the firm, appearing at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum less than a day prior to his firing.
According to the New York Times, neither Altman nor Brockman are guaranteed a return to power, largely on account of the company’s non-profit origins, which preclude investors from directing company-wide decisions. They instead leave those choices to members of the board itself. Altman and Brockman were both members of the OpenAI board. However, with their departures, only lead researcher, Ilya Sutskever; Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo; director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology Helen Toner; and computer scientist Tasha McCauley remain members — at least, through the weekend.