Passion around OpenAI: Why was Sam Altman fired and what awaits him and the company?

Over the weekend, the Board of Directors of OpenAI, known for developing the ChatGPT chatbot, fired Sam Altman from his post as CEO of the company, accusing him of “lack of candor.” Now, however, they want him back. What is happening in the company and what awaits it? Why was Altman fired and what will he do in the future?

Why was Altman fired?

The company said in a press release that Altman was fired after a review by the board of directors found that “he was not consistently forthcoming with the board of directors, which interfered with his ability to perform his duties. The board of directors no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI."

The release also states that the company was created to advance artificial intelligence and ensure that it benefits humanity, and the company will remain committed to this mission.

Altman's position was temporarily taken by Mira Murati, who had previously been OpenAI's chief technology officer.

Interestingly, the procedure for firing Altman itself was far from “standard”: the board of directors contacted him via Google Meet and informed him of his dismissal. Most likely, this was very sudden for Altman himself, who was immediately cut off from access to work email and corporate devices, and for the majority of the company’s employees. Moreover, this news also took the management of Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, by surprise. According to Bloomberg's source, the head of the corporation, Satya Nadella, was “stunned” by this news and even became furious.

Altman himself commented on his dismissal on the X social network as follows: “I really enjoyed my time at OpenAI. It was a time of transformation for me personally and, I hope, for the world. My favorite thing was working with such talented people.”

He said nothing about the reasons for his dismissal.

According to some sources, Sam Altman had conflicts and disagreements with members of the OpenAI board, especially with Ilya Sutskever, the company's co-founder and chief scientific officer. The disagreements primarily seemed to focus on ways to quickly develop generative AI, commercialize products, and implement measures to reduce possible threats to society from AI.

Since there is not enough information about the reasons for Altman’s dismissal, various theories about this are actively being built on the Internet. Thus, some claim that Altman hid from the board of directors the fact that the company had actually developed the so-called strong artificial intelligence (AGI), which is capable of thinking and realizing itself as an individual. According to another, even crazier theory, a strong AI seized power in the company and fired the leader itself. Other users claim that Altman hid from the company's management the fact that ChatGPT is actually tens of thousands of people who sit in the basement and manually answer questions asked by artificial intelligence.

Of course, all these theories are humorous. The real reason for Altman’s dismissal, unfortunately, is still unknown.

Altman did not leave alone

After the dismissal of Sam Altman, several more employees voluntarily left the company, including three senior researchers - Jakub Pachocki (served as director of research), Alexander Madry (headed the department of potential risk assessment) and Shimon Sidor, who worked in the company for 7 years . In addition, co-founder Greg Brockman also left his position as chairman of the board of directors and president of the company.

Brockman, from social network X, stated the following: “I am very proud of what we have created since our founding eight years ago in my home. We've been through tough times and great times together, achieving great things despite all the odds that made it impossible, but as the news says today, I'm leaving. I wish you all the best as I continue to believe in the mission of creating secure AGI (artificial general intelligence) that benefits all of humanity.”

Are they trying to bring Altman back?

The company's board of directors seems to have quickly regretted the decision: according to The Verge, board members are considering the possibility of returning Altman to the post of CEO. Moreover, Altman does not seem to mind this, but would like to eliminate the existing contradictions in the leadership.

There is an opinion that if Altman does not return to his post, the company may split. Firstly, as already noted, many employees are leaving the company, which will certainly have a negative impact on its work. In addition, all these employees can join Altman's new project if he creates one. The company's investors also seem to be confused by this situation: all these problems are contrary to their interests.

In addition, according to Bloomberg, transactions for the sale of OpenAI shares by employees of the company, whose capitalization was estimated at $86 billion, which had been prepared several weeks before these events, are now at least hanging in the air: some expect at least some certainty, while others have already abandoned their intentions to buy shares. In light of all this, the future of the company seems more than uncertain.

Will Sam Altman create a new project?

Bloomberg reports, citing an anonymous source, that the company's board of directors was concerned about Altman's entrepreneurial projects. So, he wanted to create a startup producing AI accelerators that could compete with NVIDIA. And to finance the startup, he wanted to attract several tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Altman also met with Japanese financial conglomerate SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son and former Apple designer Jony Ive to discuss a multibillion-dollar project to launch an innovative consumer device—sort of like the “iPhone of AI.”

Most likely, Altman, unless, of course, he returns to OpenAI, will create a new company in which he will recruit his former employees. Bloomberg sources are confident that in the near future OpenAI will have a large wave of layoffs by its own decision, and many of these employees will willingly go to work for Altman.

What exactly Altman’s new project – or projects – will do is still unknown. Perhaps his new company will do the same as OpenAI, and perhaps focus on producing AI accelerators and a consumer device with powerful AI.