Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI
Sam Altman was fired from his position as CEO of OpenAI, the company announced Friday.
“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process conducted by the Board of Directors, which concluded that he had not always been candid in his communications with the Board of Directors, hindering his ability to carry out his responsibilities,” the company said in its blog. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI.”
Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately. The company will look for a permanent successor to the CEO. When contacted by The edge, OpenAI’s communications department declined to comment beyond the blog post. OpenAI employees learned of the news when it was announced publicly, according to multiple sources.
“I loved my time at OpenAI,” Altman said in a publication on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s been transformative for me personally and hopefully for the world a little bit.” In a follow-up articlehe described the experience of being fired as “a bit like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive”.
OpenAI’s announcement also indicates that co-founder and president Greg Brockman will step down as chairman of the board but will remain with the company. A few hours after its publication, Brockman job to X that he had resigned “based on today’s news.”
Later in another message on X, Brockman said that he and Altman were both informed of their removal from the board on Friday by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who is also a board member. “Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today,” Brockman wrote.
This is an extremely sudden turn of events. Altman was the face of OpenAI, which launched the current AI arms race with the wildly popular release of ChatGPT last year. Last week, Altman delivered the keynote speech at the company’s first-ever DevDay conference, where he announced a suite of major new updates to compete with other big tech companies like Microsoft And Google. Most recently, Altman spoke at Thursday’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference.
Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAItell The edge he will continue to collaborate with the company. “We have a long-term partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft remains committed to Mira and her team as we bring this new era of AI to our customers,” according to a statement sent by Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a similar statement about.
Altman reportedly spoke with former Apple design director Jony Ive about creating the “iPhone of artificial intelligence” although Altman downplayed these rumors to a recent Wall Street Journal conference. He is also the largest shareholder in Humanewho has just issued the orders for its human AI Pin.
Altman is co-founder of OpenAI and originally served as co-chairman of the company alongside Elon Musk. Musk is gone in 2018 to avoid a conflict of interest with Tesla. He has since founded his own AI company, xAI.
Unlike traditional boards of directors of private companies, OpenAI’s board of directors is primarily made up of outsiders. After the departures of Altman and Brockman, the remaining board members are the company’s chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, the former CEO of GeoSim Systems, and Helen Toner, director of strategy at the Georgetown Center for Safety and Security. Emerging technology.
Tom Warren contributed reporting.
Updated November 17 at 6:46 p.m. ET: Added X messages from Sam Altman and Satya Nadella.
Updated November 17 at 7:29 p.m. ET: Added Greg Brockman’s post X and additional details.
Updated November 17 at 12:27 a.m. ET: Added more details on the removal of Greg Brockman and Sam Altman from the board.
