The OpenAI board is in talks with Sam Altman about returning to CEO, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. One of them said Altman, who was fired suddenly and without notice by the board on Friday, was “ambivalent” about returning and wanted significant changes in the company’s leadership.
Altman, who held talks with the company just a day after his ouster, suggests that OpenAI is in freefall without him. Hours after his firing, Greg Brockman, president and former chief executive of OpenAI, resigned and the two spoke with friends about starting another company. A number of senior researchers also resigned on Friday, and people close to OpenAI say more departures are in the works.
OpenAI’s largest investor, Microsoft, said in a statement shortly after Altman’s firing that the company “remains committed” to its partnership with the AI company. However, OpenAI investors were given no advance warning or opportunity to comment on the board’s decision to remove Altman. As the face of the company and the most prominent voice in AI, his removal throws OpenAI’s future into uncertainty at a time when competitors are struggling to match ChatGPT’s unprecedented success.
OpenAI’s remaining board of directors consists of: OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, former GeoSim Systems CEO Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, director of strategy at the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Unlike traditional companies, the board is not tasked with maximizing shareholder value. Its stated mission is to ensure the creation of a “generally useful” artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Originally posted 2023-11-18 23:30:11.