Sam Altman was reinstated as the CEO of OpenAI on November 30 after the company board succumbed to pressure from employees and investors. The board, which fired Altman on November 17 for allegedly lying to them, also resigned. A new board was appointed which includes an observer from Microsoft, the biggest investor in OpenAI with investments believed to be over $10 billion.
Altman has become one of the most popular faces of AI in recent times due to the immense success of ChatGPT, which has sparked a fervent interest in generative AI and artificial general intelligence (AGI), two fields with the potential to revolutionize various industries. While AGI remains several years away, according to experts like Altman, the strides made in generative AI and large language models (LLMs) are important milestones in this direction.
His leadership and vision have played a key role in OpenAI's meteoric rise. From its humble beginnings as a non-profit startup in 2015, OpenAI has transformed into one of the most valuable AI startups in the world. According to a WSJ report, the firm is close to seeking a new valuation of up to $90 billion and is in talks with investors.
Here is a timeline of what has transpired at OpenAI in the last two weeks.
Nov 17: Sam Altman was removed as the CEO of OpenAI by the board, which said in a statement that it had lost confidence in Altman’s ability to lead the company as he was not “consistently candid in his communications” with them. The board appointed CTO Mira Murati as the interim CEO to lead the firm until Altman’s replacement was found.
Nov 18: In a show of solidarity with Altman, Greg Brockman, one of the co-founders and president of OpenAI said in a post on X that he is quitting OpenAI.
Brockman was removed from the chairman of the board a day earlier, but allowed to continue in his other role at the company.
Nov 20: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced in a post on X that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will be joining Microsoft to lead a new division focused on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) research. A day later Nadella said in an interview that he was not privy to the OpenAI board’s decision until it was made public.
Nov 20: Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear said in a post on X that he was offered the position of interim CEO of OpenAI, which he accepted.
Nov 20: To put more pressure on the board, over 700 (around 95%) OpenAI employees issued a letter threatening to leave the company “imminently” and join Altman at Microsoft unless the board of directors stepped down and reinstated Altman as CEO.
Nov 20: Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI and a member of the board, who was earlier in favour of ousting Altman later said that he regretted his decision. Sutskever also threatened to quit unless the board resigned. “I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI,” he said in a post on X.
Nov 23: Days before the removal of Altman, researchers at OpenAI wrote a letter to the board of directors expressing concern over a groundbreaking AI discovery, known as project Q, which posed a potential existential threat to humanity, according to a report in Reuters. The board's decision to oust Altman stemmed from their frustration over being kept in the dark about projects at OpenAI including this potentially dangerous AI breakthrough.
Nov 29: OpenAI said in a blog post that Sam Altman has been reinstated as the CEO and a new initial board chaired by Bret Taylor and Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo as members was appointed. The new board will also include Microsoft as a non-voting observer. Ilya Sutskever will no longer serve on the board. Greg Brockman will also return to the role of president while Mira Murati will continue as the CTO.