OpenAI brings Sam Altman back as CEO less than a week after he was fired by board

[LumosDC]

Summary

 

Friday: Dismissed as CEO

Friday: First interim CEO is named

Sunday: Second interm CEO is named

Monday: 95% of workers say they will quit if Altman doesn't return

Tuesday: Panic deepens and negotiations are well under way for a return

Super early Wednesday: Altman is brought back as CEO

 

Quotes

Quote

Sam Altman will return as CEO of OpenAI, the startup said early Wednesday morning on X, formerly known as Twitter. The move follows immense pressure from employees and investors on the board that ousted him less than a week ago.

 

My thoughts

The utter lack of transparency is a problem itself and seems like the reason for it is that there is little to nothing that would've been grounds for dismissal. The only thing I can think of is that they were frustrated by the lack of progress and/or a cautious approach by Altman which meant less earnings long-term. 

 

Sources

Sam Altman: Ousted OpenAI boss to return days after being sacked

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/22/openai-brings-sam-altman-back-as-ceo-days-after-ouster.html

[Arika]

what a shitshow.....

[GOTSpectrum]

Puts steve jobs to shame, gets dismissed and rehired within a week 

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

Microsoft paid good money for buying that non profit and making profit. It expect a return on its investment!

[LumosDC]

The sounds you are hearing is the board of directors are backing up over themselves and Forumla 1'ing to course-correct, while them and everyone else are using electric massagers to treat the whiplash.

 

 

 

[Poinkachu]

Well.... they sure picked a very unique way to give him a raise/bonus/perks.

[LAwLz]

Some of the previous board members have been replaced as well. Ilya Sutskever, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner are being replaced by Larry Summer (former Treasure Secretary) and Bret Taylor (CEO of Salesforce).

 

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-board-larry-summers-bret-taylor-adam-dangelo-sam-altman-2023-11

 

 

Edit: Added source and that Helen is also out.

 

 

Edit 2: Seems like Greg Brockman isn't rejoining OpenAI. So maybe he will head the Microsoft division.

[Jinchu]

I really hope that some day there will be a movie about this.. What a week!

[Mark Kaine]

ok that seals it for me, AI is a gimmick,  just like wii waggle controls, "oh it can write code"... yeah, nah, dude it can't, get a grip.  

 

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Jinchu said:

I really hope that some day there will be a movie about this.. What a week!

a movie about fake ai/crypto snakesoil drama?

 

i mean yeah, people would probably watch it... 

[Jinchu]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

a movie about fake ai/crypto snakesoil drama?

 

i mean yeah, people would probably watch it... 

I mean. It'd be mainly about drama. Just like the facebook movie.. The Social Network (2010). But yeah. This smell like there are bunch of mistakes and a metric ton of hurt feelings.

[Dominik W]

This whole thing has been such a god damn roller coaster. Wild.

[Taf the Ghost]

6 hours ago, LumosDC said:

The sounds you are hearing is the board of directors are backing up over themselves and Forumla 1'ing to course-correct, while them and everyone else are using electric massagers to treat the whiplash.

 

 

 

 

Are we going for a full "Master Plan" approach of "We're checking..." or more of a "Michael, this isn't right?"

 

Though I can fully see a Alphamaxnova1-style video for this entire situation.

 

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Some of the previous board members have been replaced as well. Illya and Tasha are being replaced by Larry Summer (former Treasure Secretary) and Bret Taylor (CEO of Salesforce) 

Well that's very interesting. Larry is always a guy to keep an eye on. He's the "Kevin Bacon" of the Finance/Tech interactions, so he always shows up spots where the true power players have a large interest in actually working.  I wonder if there's a bit of a control/stake fight in the company that we just saw break out.

[Stahlmann]

I bet he got a better contract than what he had before because OpenAI just got reminded how important he is.

 

*puts on tinfoil hat*

[Avocado Diaboli]

Did the board of directors consult ChatGPT on their business strategy? Because this sure sounds like something cooked up by a chatbot.

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Jinchu said:

I mean. It'd be mainly about drama. Just like the facebook movie.. The Social Network (2010). But yeah. This smell like there are bunch of mistakes and a metric ton of hurt feelings.

well it smells more like a bunch of yuppies with $$$ in their eyes, but yeah...

 

 

[GOTSpectrum]

[Beskamir]

Ah, so ChatGPT changed its mind and wanted its creator back in charge.

[wanderingfool2]

15 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

I bet he got a better contract than what he had before because OpenAI just got reminded how important he is.

 

*puts on tinfoil hat*

Honestly, the way things have gone down and all the rumors that are swirling about why the board got rid of him; a tin foil hat theory might not be too far out there.

 

 

 

Overall to this topic, there feels like something went down that the public really isn't privy to...and honestly it feels like maybe they were trying to sweep something under the rug but with the threat of mass exodus they realized they can't do that.

[Senzelian]

very serious people in very serious positions doing very serious work

[Jinchu]

I don't believe this article fully, but since we are speculating on the topic:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-altmans-ouster-openai-was-precipitated-by-letter-board-about-ai-breakthrough-2023-11-22/

 

• Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
• Some at OpenAI believe Q* (pronounced Q-Star) could be a breakthrough in the startup's search for what's known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks.

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Jinchu

[LAwLz]

I listened to a podcast with Leo Laporte and I think he had an interesting take.

Basically, he says that he is worried Sam was pro-profit, anti-safety which is kind of against the original intention of OpenAI.

 

It's no secret that OpenAI went from "let's develop everything in the open" to "let's try and make money and keep stuff to ourselves". They still haven't released ChatGPT-3 to the public for example.

 

So what might have happened is that OpenAI felt like Sam was losing touch of the goal of OpenAI, and felt like they had to get rid of him. Then it all backfired and now the people who might have been pushing for safe and open AI are gone, and we're left with the for-profit people.

 

 

[CatXice]

i heard that basically everyone on the board that fired him has now been fired as well can anyone confirm this?

 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, CatXice said:

i heard that basically everyone on the board that fired him has now been fired as well can anyone confirm this?

Everyone except one. 

 

I don't think this forum is a good place for confirmation, but I did leave a link to a more reputable source a bit higher up.