According to sources, Sam Altman, the former CEO of OpenAI, will not be joining the ChatGPT development team again. Picture: MTR
It has been claimed that negotiations to reinstate ChatGPT developer OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman have failed, and he will not be taking over as CEO again.
Instead, according to numerous sources, the non-profit board of the San Francisco-based business appointed Emmett Shear, a co-founder of the video streaming website Twitch, as OpenAI’s third CEO in three days.
After being charged with not being “consistently candid in communications” with the board, Altman was fired on Friday. The news shocked Silicon Valley. After that, a group of investors in OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, launched an effort to get Altman back, and this past weekend, discussions about a reversal took place. Altman even tweeted a photo of himself outside OpenAI’s offices while sporting a visitor card.
Shear has been named as OpenAI’s interim CEO, succeeding Altman’s temporary replacement, Mira Murati, after the talks broke down. The Information, a tech news website, broke the story of Altman’s botched comeback.
“First and last time I ever wear one of these,” Altman said under a photo of himself on X that he had uploaded on Sunday while sporting an OpenAI visitor credential.
Prior to this, the Wall Street Journal had revealed that Altman’s return was subject to a new governance structure and board, and that he was thinking about forming a new business with former OpenAI coworkers.
There are rumors that Altman and Apple’s former design leader Jony Ive have been talking about developing a new AI hardware product. Additionally, it was stated that Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, had participated in the discussion.
It has been claimed that Altman and the board were having negotiations mediated by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
With Altman serving as both the company’s and the AI industry’s public face, the board’s decision to fire him on Friday shocked the tech community and the employees of OpenAI. If Altman did not come back, The Verge had speculated that other staff members would probably quit as well.
A memo from the company’s chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, informing employees that efforts were being made to rehire Altman and other top colleagues who had departed, was cited in a previous story. After Altman left, three senior researchers—Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Mądry, and Szymon Sidor—as well as OpenAI President Greg Brockman resigned.
Kwon wrote, “We continue to work towards a resolution and we remain optimistic,” the Information said. In order to achieve a resolution, we intend to bring back Sam, Greg, Jakub, Szymon, Aleksander, and other coworkers (I apologize if I missed you!). We also intend to maintain our position as the best environment for people to work on AGI [artificial general intelligence] research, safety, products, and policy.
The board of OpenAI, which oversees a for-profit subsidiary Altman was CEO of, is in charge of the non-profit parent company. Following Altman’s departure and the resignation of President Brockman following Altman’s termination, the company is now run by Ilya Sutskever, the top scientist of OpenAI, and three non-employees.
We have reached out to Microsoft and OpenAI for comments.