On November 17th, the Founder and CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, was fired.
The sudden firing caused many to question the reason behind it. OpenAI’s board said they fired the CEO because he “no longer had confidence in his ability to lead” and was not “consistently candid” in communicating with the board. The board also stated that new leadership was “necessary.” After firing the CEO, the President and Co-Founder, Greg Brockman, announced that he quit because of “today’s news.”. Although Altman was shocked at what the board did, he appreciated the company and how transformative it was for him.
OpenAI is the creator of the AI chatbot ChatGPT, which skyrocketed the popularity of the company and the AI chatbot. ChatGPT gained over 100 million users over a year. The release of ChatGPT forced many leading technology companies to start developing and creating their own AI software. Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and others were entering the AI market.
For now, one of the members of OpenAI’s board was made a temporary CEO.
Microsoft invested heavily in OpenAI due to its success, thus creating a relationship between both companies. Due to this, Altman was able to create a new department at Microsoft. This department would specialize in the creation and development of AI. Brockman, the co-founder of OpenAI, also decided to join Altman in running the new department. On the 19th of November, a new CEO was chosen to run OpenAI. The former CEO of Twitch, Emmett Shear, was the interim CEO. Although a new CEO was temporarily chosen, the employees were fed up. Due to this, the employees at OpenAI decided to give the board a choice on what to do with the company.
Three days after the firing of Altman, a letter created by the employees at OpenAI was sent to the board. This letter stated that the employees would leave OpenAI and join Microsoft at Altman’s new department if the demands of the employees were not met. The needs outlined included “all current board members resigning” and Altman and Brockman reinstated into their previous positions. This left the board no choice but to abide by the demands, and by the next day, Altman and Brockman returned to their respective roles in the company. With this, a new board was created, and the company could continue to look towards the future of AI. The threat of having most employees leave the company left the board in an unwinnable position.
