Sam Altman has been ousted from the position of CEO at OpenAI. Allegations are that the board staged a coup to remove him from the chair. Some reports also claim that the board had lost confidence in him after displaying inconsistencies in communication with the board. It remains to be seen which part of the story is correct; however, it is not confirmed that Microsoft will be housing Altman under their new advanced AI research program. Greg Brockman is joining the new team, too.
It appears that the former President of OpenAI submitted his resignation in protest. The abrupt and irrational dismissal of Altman was well-received by him.
Per a statement by Satya Nadella, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman are joining Microsoft along with their colleagues. These people are believed to have resigned from OpenAI as a protest, similar to Greg. The number and names of colleagues are not public yet. The development comes at a time when a large number of employees have demonstrated their willingness to leave the company.
All of them have backed their reasons with a letter to the OpenAI Board, seeking the Board to reinstate Altman and Brockman or see them leave in large numbers for Microsoft.
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OpenAI publicly announced removing Sam Altman from the venture on November 18, 2023, sending shock waves to the industry. Two days later, Satya Nadella expressed his excitement while announcing the hiring of him for the said AI arm. Sam Altman has acknowledged the update by reposting it and captioning it with the mission continues tagline.
Altman now takes on the position of CEO in Microsoft’s venture. Greg Brockman has expressed his confidence in creating something new and incredible. Jakub Pachocki, Szymon Sidor, and Aleksander Madry are others on board the table of initial leadership.
Emmett Shear, the former Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, is set to take over the same position at OpenAI. Emmett will take control from Mira Maruti, who was picked to work as an interim CEO.
Altman’s removal from the company came when ChatGPT rose to fame. The bot has revolutionized industries and how a person works, even inspiring other giants to launch a competitor in the market. He is now likely to help Microsoft reduce its dependence on Nvidia to save on costs.
As for the employees at OpenAI, they have accused the company of undermining their work and the mission of the company. Ilya Sutskever allegedly led the effort to have Altman removed. They have currently expressed regret over the chaos in the company. Interestingly, and despite all the public allegations, Ilya is on the list of employees who could resign from OpenAI soon.
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Sam Altman and Greg Brockman are now moving on to Microsoft, with Satya Nadella ready to give them a bigger task for the company. It remains to be seen how many colleagues will actually join Microsoft in the coming days.
