The OpenAI mess was all but over as of last November, but there was one outstanding item: an official review into the actions of CEO Sam Altman. Update: The internal review is now complete, Altman has now been officially appointed to the board, with three new directors.
The board expressed full confidence in the leadership of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, but the mystery of what led to his removal in the first place remains unsolved – more at the end …
The OpenAI mess
OpenAI announced November 17 that four members of the company’s board had fired Altman and removed Brockman from the board. Only the vaguest of reasons were given, which was that Altman was allegedly “not consistently candid in his communications with the board.”
The tech world came out in support of Altman, and major OpenAI investors tried to get him reinstated. Microsoft offered jobs to Altman, Brockman, and anyone else from the OpenAI team who wanted to join them. Almost the entire staff then sent an open letter to the board stating that they would resign unless Altman was reinstated and the board fired.
OpenAI initially said that CTO Mira Murati would act as interim CEO, but within 48 hours said that Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear would replace her – also as an interim hire. A second set of negotiations were then held. Those resulted in all but one of the board members being removed, and Sam Altman being reinstated as CEO – with some notable compromises.
Altman’s return, new board, Sutskever
The paperwork is now complete, and Altman has officially resumed his duties as CEO of the commercial wing of the organization, though an internal review is still being carried out.
Altman announced that a new oversight board has been appointed
I am returning to OpenAI as CEO. Mira will return to her role as CTO. The new initial board will consist of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo.
Bret Taylor announced that this included an unusual role for Microsoft.
We are pleased that this Board will include a non-voting observer for Microsoft.
Altman said that chief scientist and former board member Ilya Sutskever will return in some capacity, though not as a board member. (Sutskever was one of those who voted to fire Altman, before declaring that he deeply regretted doing so.)
I love and respect Ilya, I think he’s a guiding light of the field and a gem of a human being. I harbor zero ill will towards him. While Ilya will no longer serve on the board, we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI.
Lawyer writes Altman tweet
Parts of Altman’s statement were clearly written by a lawyer, as was a tweet.
The best interests of the company and the mission always come first. It is clear that there were real misunderstandings between me and members of the board. For my part, it is incredibly important to learn from this experience and apply those learnings as we move forward as a company. I welcome the board’s independent review of all recent events. I am thankful to Helen and Tasha for their contributions to the strength of OpenAI.
Anyone who follows his tweets will be aware of his eccentric habit of using only lower-case, giving this one a jarring appearance.
Adam D’Angelo remains on board
Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo remains a board member, despite his company offering competing generative text models, as well as buying access to ChatGPT. Altman – or rather a lawyer posing as Altman – addressed this in another tweet.
I recognize that during this process some questions were raised about Adam’s potential conflict of interest running Quora and Poe while being on the OpenAI Board. For the record, I want to state that Adam has always been very clear with me and the Board about the potential conflict and doing whatever he needed to do (recusing himself when appropriate and even offering to leave the Board if we ever thought it was necessary) to appropriately manage this situation and to avoid conflicted decision-making. Quora is a large customer of OpenAI and we found it helpful to have customer representation on our Board.
The controversy isn’t yet over, as the board has promised to commission an independent investigation into events – and we still don’t know for sure what prompted the former board to fire Altman.
Update: The review is now complete:
The Special Committee of the OpenAI Board today announced the completion of the review by WilmerHale. The firm conducted dozens of interviews with members of OpenAI’s prior Board, OpenAI executives, advisors to the prior Board, and other pertinent witnesses; reviewed more than 30,000 documents; and evaluated various corporate actions. Based on the record developed by WilmerHale and following the recommendation of the Special Committee, the Board expressed its full confidence in Mr. Sam Altman and Mr. Greg Brockman’s ongoing leadership of OpenAI.
“We have unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI,” stated Bret Taylor, Chair of the OpenAI Board.
The statement rules out several theories that were voiced at the time, but doesn’t state the reason for the loss of trust:
WilmerHale also found that the prior Board’s decision did not arise out of concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI’s finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners. Instead, it was a consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust between the prior Board and Mr. Altman.
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