Removal Of Sam Altman From OpenAI

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board of directors ousted co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman after the board had no confidence in his leadership. The removal was caused by concerns about his handling of artificial intelligence safety, and allegations of abusive behavior. Altman was reinstated on November 22 after pressure from employees and investors.

Background

OpenAI

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence firm founded in December 2015 as a non-profit entity. The for-profit division of the organization released the chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022, contributing to a resurgence in generative artificial intelligence funding. The board of directors of the controlling non-profit formerly comprised chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, as well as Adam D'Angelo, chief executive of Quora, entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, strategy director for the Center for Security and Emerging Technology. As of October 2023, the company is valued at billion and was set to bring in billion in revenue. Altman has described OpenAI's relationship with Microsoft as the "best bromance in tech".

OpenAI is uniquely structured, an intentional decision to avoid investor control. A board of directors controls the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. The non-profit owns and controls a for-profit company itself controlling a capped-profit company, OpenAI Global, LLC and a holding company owned by employees and other investors. The holding company is the majority owner of OpenAI Global, LLC.; Microsoft owns a minority stake in the capped-profit company. OpenAI's bylaws, enacted in January 2016, allow a majority of its board of directors to remove any director without prior warning or a formal meeting with written consent.

Sam Altman

Sam Altman is a co-founder of OpenAI and its former chief executive; Altman took over the company following co-chair Elon Musk's resignation in 2018. Under Altman, OpenAI has shifted to becoming a for-profit entity. Altman is credited with convincing Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella with investing billion in cash and computing credits into OpenAI and leading several tender offer transactions that tripled the company's valuation. Altman testified before the United States Congress speaking critically of artificial intelligence and appeared at the 2023 AI Safety Summit.

In the days leading up to his removal, Altman made several public appearances, announcing the GPT-4 Turbo platform at OpenAI's DevDay conference, attending APEC United States 2023, and speaking at an event related to Burning Man.

Events leading up to the removal

The resignation of LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist Shivon Zilis, and former Republican representative Will Hurd from the board allowed the remaining members to remove Altman. According to Kara Swisher and ''The Wall Street Journal'', Sutskever was instrumental in Altman's removal. Disagreements over the safety of artificial intelligence divided employees prior to Altman's removal. The release of ChatGPT created divisions with OpenAI as a for-profit company without considerations for the safety of artificial intelligence and a non-profit cautious of artificial intelligence's capabilities; in a staff email sent in 2019 and obtained by ''The Atlantic'', Altman referred to these divisions as "tribes".

Prior to his removal, Altman was seeking billions from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to develop an artificial intelligence chip to compete with Nvidia and courted SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son to develop artificial intelligence hardware with former Apple designer Jony Ive. Sutskever and his allies opposed these efforts, viewing them as unjustly using the OpenAI name. Altman reduced Sutskever's role in October 2023, furthering divisions; Sutskever successfully appealed to several members of the board. Swisher and ''The Verge'' reporter Alex Heath stated that opposition to Altman's profit-driven strategy culminated in the DevDay conference in which Altman announced custom ChatGPT instances. According to ''Axios'', the removal was driven by growing discontent and distrust with Altman.

On November 22, 2023, reports emerged suggesting that Sam Altman's dismissal from OpenAI might be linked to his alleged mishandling of a significant breakthrough in the organization's secretive project codenamed Q*. According to sources within OpenAI, Q* is aimed at developing AI capabilities in logical and mathematical reasoning, and reportedly involves performing math on the level of grad-school students. Concerns about Altman's response to this development, specifically regarding the potential safety implications of the discovery, were reportedly raised to the company's board shortly before his firing.

A report from ''The Washington Post'' in December stated that OpenAI's board of directors were concerned over Altman's allegedly abusive behavior; the complaints were purportedly a major factor in his removal. The ''Post'' previously reported that Altman's alleged pattern of deception and subversiveness that ostensibly resulted in his removal from Y Combinator ultimately resulted in the board's decision to remove him.

Removal

On November 17, 2023, at approximately noon PST, OpenAI's board of directors ousted Altman effective immediately following a "deliberative review process". The board concluded that Altman was not "consistently candid in his communications". Altman was informed of his removal five to ten minutes before it occurred on a Google Meet while watching the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Within thirty minutes, Sutskever invited OpenAI chairman and president Greg Brockman to a Google Meet to inform him of Altman's removal. According to an internal memo obtained by ''Axios'', the removal was not due to "malfeasance", and OpenAI chief executive Emmett Shear denied accusations that the removal was due to disagreements. The board publicly announced Altman's removal thirty minutes later.

Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati was immediately appointed to interim chief executive officer. Hours after Altman's removal, Brockman resigned as chairman, joined by director of research and researchers and Szymon Sidor. During an all-hands meeting, Sutskever defended the ouster and denied accusations of a hostile takeover. An OpenAI representative requested former board member Will Hurd's presence.

Reinstatement

Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital had attempted to reinstate Altman, according to '' The Information''; Bloomberg News reported that Microsoft and Thrive Capital were seeking for Altman's reinstatement. On November 18, ''The Verge'' reported that OpenAI's board of directors discussed reinstating Altman. The board agreed in principle to resign and to allow Altman to return, but missed the deadline. According to ''The Verge'', Altman was ambivalent about returning and would seek significant changes to the company, including replacing the board. A list of directors had been prepared by investors in the event that the board steps down, and purportedly included former Salesforce executive Bret Taylor. According to chief strategy officer Jason Kwon, OpenAI was optimistic it could return Altman, Brockman, and other employees.

On November 19, Altman and Brockman appeared at OpenAI's headquarters to negotiate, mediated by Nadella. According to Bloomberg News, Murati, Kwon, and chief operating officer Brad Lightcap were pushing for a new board of directors; it was required that the board absolve him of wrongdoing in order for Altman to be reinstated. Taylor was expected be a member of the new board and Microsoft had also attempted to gain a seat. ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky and businesswoman Laurene Powell Jobs were also considered. Murati had intended to rehire Altman and Brockman, discussing the move with Adam D'Angelo. ''The Verge'' reported that Altman intended to return to OpenAI with support from Sutskever.

The board chose to name former Twitch chief executive Emmett Shear as OpenAI's chief executive instead of reinstating Altman. Former GitHub chief executive Nat Friedman and Scale AI chief executive Alex Wang reportedly rejected executive offers from the board. Anthropic