Sam Altman ousted as OpenAI CEO
OpenAI CEO Altman fired in Board 'coup'; Brockman and others quit OpenAI
Breaking News - Sam Altman ousted as OpenAI CEO
I loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people. will have more to say about what’s next later.” - Sam Altman on X
“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.” - OpenAI Board statement on OpenAI leadership
OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman has been fired from his role. The co-founder and Board Chairman Greg Brockman was removed from the board and quit. Brockman said: “Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.”
The news is surprising to all, both inside OpenAI and to partners like Microsoft. It’s the most significant boardroom coup in tech since the Steve Jobs firing from Apple in 1985, but the board was very terse in their reasoning. “He was not consistently candid” leaves out much, leaving many to puzzle as to why.
Also interesting is that the board fired Altman in a meeting that the Chairman Greg Brockman wasn’t even at, it was a 15 minute meeting, held over Google Meet. Further, the only board member that works at OpenAI is Ilya Sutskevar. It’s a small board of four besides Brockman. Interestingly, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo is on the board, and Quora’s Poe had custom chatbot creations, a competitor to custom GPTs.
What Caused the Board ‘Coup’?
Why no real explanation from the board? Gossip and theories abounded on X about why Altman was fired in the wake of the sudded news. While the prevalent view was around AI Safety, various theories floated around WorldCoin, personal indiscretions, other board issues, and more.
The Matt Mireless theory on X is typical: “AGI / ASI has been achieved internally at OpenAI, so @ilyasut hit the panic button and staged a coup.”
An internal OpenAI memo shared to Axios made the muddy picture clearer - there was no ‘malfeasance’ by Altman but there was a ‘breakdown in communications’:
Sam Altman's firing as OpenAI CEO was not the result of "malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices" but rather a "breakdown in communications between Sam Altman and the board," per an internal memo from chief operating officer Brad Lightcap seen by Axios.
As reported by Ars Technica, the breakdown seems to be related to AI Safety versus pursuit of profit and market opportunities as the source of the conflict, with Ilya Sutskevar behind the move. There was an internal OpenAI meeting Friday where Ilya was directly challenged on this, with an employee calling it a ‘coup’:
According to reporting from Kara Swisher and The Information, it's looking like the ouster of Altman stemmed from an internal disagreement over the direction of the company with regard to a focus on profits over safety, with Chief Scientist Illya Sutskever apparently behind the board maneuvering.
Reporting from Bloomberg article “Silicon Valley Boardroom Coup Leads to Ouster of an AI Champion” is that:
Safety and commercialization were central to disagreements
Microsoft CEO was ‘blindsided,’ furious at Altman’s firing
Microsoft should be. Microsoft invested heavily in their relationship with OpenAI, both in terms of money - $13 billion - but also clout and extensive relationships. Just this week, Microsoft announced yet more plowing ahead with OpenAI models, CoPilots everywhere based on OpenAI models. To be blindsided by this is bizarre.
Will they sue the board, change that relationship? No, they publicly declared ‘Utmost Confidence’ in OpenAI, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote on X:
“We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team.”
At the same time, that may be putting a brave face on it. This rupture may lead to a future where Microsoft spreads its bets and works with other partners they can trust better, especially since the Microsoft profit goal is different from the OpenAI goal.
OpenAI Defections Lead to Rupture
Even though the board announced that Greg Brockman would still be a part of the company, he decided to quit Friday. OpenAI did announce a new CEO Mira Murata. Further, there were a number of defections in the wake of the firing:
Jakub Pachocki, the company’s director of research; Aleksander Madry, head of a team evaluating potential risks from AI, and Szymon Sidor, a seven-year researcher at the startup, told associates they had resigned, these people said.
Some top engineers are fleeing OpenAI, so the rupture could be severe. There are many, like Swyx, with sympathy for Altman who feel the “OpenAI board has lost all credibility.”
Another take from Dr Jim Fan, who interned with the OpenAI founders back in the day, is that, while they might have been stronger together, “we will inevitably see the birth of new heavyweight competitors, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing for the community.”
Greg, Ilya, and Dario are among the most brilliant and mission-driven people I know, even though their missions now diverge into OpenAI, Anthropic, and whatever Greg/Sam are starting next. Betting against any of them is a bad idea.
John Furrier on X comes down hard on the OpenAI board: “Power struggle and crappy board of directors. OpenAI will become the Netscape of the AI generation if this continues to go off the rails"
The Future
This rupture at OpenAI will certainly change the trajectory of AI development, both at OpenAI and across the industry.
Kara Swisher says: “The developer day was an issue.” What in that was the issue? Could it have been the App store for GPTs, or GPTs overall, a clear land grab for AI profits and a step towards AI Agents? This begs a question: If the ouster of Altman was a reaction to Altman-led OpenAI going too far too fast, what is the change in OpenAI’s roadmap?
No doubt, the exit of many OpenAI developers with Altman and Brockman from OpenAI provides an opening for them to stake out yet another competitor in the AI space. There will be investors willing to back them for sure.
A quip from dolan - e/acc on X on what Altman should call this new AI company: “They should call the next one NeXTAI.” This is a reference to the Steve Jobs parallels in this event. NeXT was the company Steve Jobs built after he was fired as Apple CEO in 1985.
Microsoft has been the partner pushing OpenAI to deliver for them, pushing OpenAI in the direction of pushing forward. While they are publicly backing the partnership, they will surely have less confidence in OpenAI long-term and will look for other partnerships. That could take the form of backing Altman or doing more internally.
Do not think OpenAI slowing down for saftey will pause AI. The Pandora’s Box has been opened, and over a dozen serious high-level AI model contenders are building AI models today that will soon match or exceed GPT-4. The competition is fierce.
Yet OpenAI is not bowing out. If anything, emphasis on more AI Safety and less profit may get us to AGI, if AI Safety unlocks more reliable and thus more capable AI.
This is a developing story, with many ripple effects on the future of the AI industry. We will continue to track and share what we learn.
One final quip found on X that sums up one of the many ironies of the AI race:
“pretty wild that the first job openai took was sam's”