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Journalism of Courage
Sam Altman was fired as CEO of OpenAI, the maker of the popular chatbot ChatGPT, by the company’s board of directors on Friday (November 17). OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati was named interim chief executive officer. Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of the company, also quit hours after the announcement was made.
In a blogpost, OpenAI said: “We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward. As the leader of the company’s research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO.”
Launched in 2015, OpenAI kickstarted the generative AI craze last November by unrevealing ChatGPT. The chatbot became one of the world’s fastest-growing software applications.
“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,” said OpenAI in its statement. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
It isn’t clear what led to the decision of the board beyond what it stated in the blogpost.
Brockman on Friday posted on X, saying, “Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today… We too are still trying to figure out exactly what happened.”
He added that Altman was asked to join a video meeting with the board at noon on Friday and was immediately fired. According to Brockman, even though he was the chairman of the board, he was not part of this board meeting. The board informed him about Altman’s firing moments later after which Brockman resigned.
The ouster of Altman and the resignation of Brockman have sent shockwaves across the tech industry. The departures blindsided many employees who discovered the abrupt management change from an internal message and the company’s blog, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Although the full impact of the development will be visible over time, the more immediate concern is how it will affect the company’s fundraising prospects. OpenAI is in talks to close a new funding round that would make the company worth more than $80 billion — nearly triple its valuation less than a year ago. It remains to be seen what Altman’s ouster will mean for those talks.
The co-founder of OpenAI was seen as a master fundraiser, who managed to get billions of dollars in investment from Microsoft.
Thomas Hayes, chairman at hedge fund Great Hill Capital, told the AP: “In the short term it will impair OpenAI’s ability to raise more capital. In the intermediate term it will be a non-issue”.
Other analysts told the news outlet that while Altman’s departure is disruptive, it wouldn’t hamper generative AI’s popularity or OpenAI’s dominance in the field.
“The innovation created by OpenAI is bigger than any one or two people, and there is no reason to think this would cause OpenAI to cede its leadership position,” said DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria. “If nothing else, Microsoft’s stake and significant interest in OpenAI’s progress ensure the appropriate leadership changes are being implemented.”
Born in 1985 in Chicago, Altman learned to program and disassemble computers by the age of 8, according to the New Yorker. He went to Stanford University to study computer science but dropped out after a year as he wanted to build a startup with a couple of his classmates.
After his social media app, Loopt, failed to take off, Altman joined a venture capitalist firm known as Y Combinator that focused on funding startups. He became the head of the firm in 2014. It was during his tenure that Y Combinator funded well-known startups like Airbnb and Dropbox.
In 2019, Altman decided to step down and focus full-time on OpenAI, an organisation which he had co-founded five years ago, as CEO.
Born in Albania and educated in Canada, Murati, 34, is a mechanical engineer, who joined OpenAI in 2018 after working at Tesla. She played an essential role in the development of the Model X car, and Leap Motion, a startup that developed a computing system to track hand and finger motions, according to a report by The New York Times.
At OpenAI, she has overseen the development and launch of ground-breaking products like ChatGPT and DALL-E. Although Murati became chief technology officer of the company last year, current and former employees told the NYT that she had been working as the company’s head of operations.
“She made sure that its engineers developed versions of ChatGPT on schedule. She also handled the company’s relationship with Microsoft, an investor and partner who has deployed OpenAI’s technology, and she helped shape its artificial intelligence policy in Washington and Europe,” the report added.
(With inputs from AP and the NYT)
