The Drama Behind OpenAI's Wild Week

Monday - December 4 2023, 17:05 UTC - 11 months ago

OpenAI's board of directors fired the company cofounder, CEO, and fellow board member, Sam Altman last Friday. After negotiations, the company announced the various parties had reached a tentative agreement to rehire Altman as CEO Tuesday night, while Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo managed to stay on the board throughout the events. OpenAI was originally founded in 2015 as a nonprofit with the mission of building artificial general intelligence broadly beneficial to humankind.

If you'd never heard of OpenAI before last week, you probably have now. The level of attention given to recent mayhem at the company leading the AI boom underscores how much this moment has captured the collective imagination.

Last Friday, OpenAI's board of directors fired the company's cofounder, CEO, and fellow board member, Sam Altman. The decision was led by OpenAI cofounder and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, and three independent board members. Greg Brockman, cofounder and OpenAI president, was also forced out as chairman and chose to resign instead of remaining at the company. Altman was replaced by interim CEO Mira Murati, formerly the company's CTO.

It was a shocking turn of events for the hottest thing in tech. And rumors swirled in the vacuum left by a vague statement explaining the decision. But these were only the first shots in the neck-snapping round of power ping-pong to come.

Over the weekend, details emerged that the board's decision was not due to "malfeasance" on Altman's part. Altman was said to be negotiating a return as CEO; then he was considering founding a new AI startup with Brockman; then the two were headed to Microsoft, after CEO Satya Nadella said he'd hire them to lead a new AI lab at his company.

On Monday, interim CEO Emmett Shear—the former CEO of Twitch who'd replaced Murati the night before—was facing open revolt. Over 95 percent of OpenAI employees signed a letter demanding the board resign and Altman be reinstated. If that didn't happen, they would follow him to Microsoft, which was offering jobs and matching compensation. Also signing the letter were Murati and Sutskever, who now said he regretted his involvement in the board's decision to remove Altman.

Finally, Tuesday night, after earlier rumors that negotiations were back on, the company announced the various parties had reached a tentative agreement to rehire Altman as CEO.

Two original board members would depart—Helen Toner, a director of strategy at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, and Tasha McCauley, an entrepreneur and researcher at RAND Corporation—while Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo would stay on. The company would also add two new board members—the economist Larry Summers and former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor (as chairman)—and likely expand the board further at some point in the future. There would also be an independent investigation into Altman's conduct and the process by which he was removed.

That's what we know. But the unpredictability of events so far suggests the story isn't over. Here's what we still don't know and what might be next.

How OpenAI Is Organized .

The events of the last five days are extraordinary in the world of tech, not least because founders usually hold significant power on their own boards.

But OpenAI is different.

The company was originally founded in 2015 as a nonprofit with the audacious mission of building artificial general intelligence broadly beneficial to humankind. They hoped that by divorcing the organization's mission from profit they could ensure AI was developed in the public's interest.