Sam Altman regains his position as director of OpenAI, ChatGPT’s company

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End of the soap opera of the year Silicon Valley.

The American technology firm OpenAIcreator of the platform ChatGPTannounced on Wednesday the return as CEO of its co-founder, Sam Altman, fired just five days ago by its board of directors. “I love openai, and everything I have done in recent days has been to keep this team and its mission together,” Altman celebrated in a message posted on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.

During the final, frantic hours, Altman and investors like Microsoft They had sat down to negotiate with the board of directors of the company. artificial intelligence (AI) to find a way out of the crisis which he had gotten himself into.

Finally, the agreement reached introduces important changes. “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new board consisting of Bret Taylor (president), Larry Summers and Adam D’Angelo“, the firm published in a message on X.

Of the three, only D’Angelo, who has led the negotiations, was part of the old board of directors. Taylor was co-CEO of the software company Salesforce and Summers is known for having been former United States Secretary of the Treasury between 1999 and 2001, under President Bill Clinton.

Success of Altman and Microsoft

In the new board of directors there is, at the moment, no women. However, there are still six new positions to be finalized. Who also does not appear to appear in the agreement is Emmett Shearthe co-creator of the Twitch platform who was appointed interim CEO of OpenAI last Sunday.

In the absence of more details, the current restructuring consolidates power and benefits the interests of Altman and Microsoft, OpenAI’s main commercial partner. “We believe that it is an essential first step on the path towards more stable, well-informed and effective governance,” he celebrated. Satya Nadella, CEO of the American technology giant. “I hope you have a good Thanksgiving,” Altman told The New York Times.

Internal tensions

The agreement confirms the expulsion of the board of directors of Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, two of those responsible for Altman’s dismissal. Both accepted his resignation to facilitate a new start at OpenAI, but supported D’Angelo staying as a sign that the board had not made a mistake, internal sources have explained to ‘The New York Times’.

The relationship between Toner and the CEO was especially tense, according to US media reports, a tension that accelerated after she published an academic article in which she publicly denounced the lack of security measures adopted by OpenAI, calling for “costly measures” (sanctions) against his own company and praised the work of Anthropicits main rival.

Pressure has forced those changes. On Monday, more than 500 employees They demanded the resignation of the entire board and threatened to go work for Microsoft. In another unexpected twist of script, the computer giant announced on Sunday that signed Altman already Greg Brockmanwho resigned as president of OpenAI in solidarity with his colleague, to lead a new division of AI advanced. Within a few hours, more than 95% of the staff had signed that public letter.

Among them stood out Ilya Sutskever, the technology chief of OpenAI who had initially supported Altman’s ouster. He changed his position, with public forgiveness included, would have been decisive. Sutskever, key in the development of ChatGPT, will remain within the company.

surprise dismissal

Altman was suddenly fired late on Friday, shortly before the New York Stock Exchange closed. The co-founder and CEO of OpenAI had been key to turning this startup into the leader of the emerging AI sector, a success supported by Microsoft’s $13 billion investment.

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In a short and hard statement, the company’s board asserted that Altman “was not consistently truthful in his communications (…) hindering his ability to exercise his responsibilities.” However, he did not give further details of what had happened to lose his trust. The reasons that led to his surprising departure are still a mystery. According to ‘The Verge’, Altman will commission an independent investigation to determine what really happened.

OpenAI seems to be returning to its path of success. Thrive Capital, the fund that leads a new offering of financing, has assured that he will continue working with the company “now and in the future.” That operation will value OpenAI at more than $80 billion, which will presumably make it the third most valuable startup in the world only behind ByteDanceowner of TikTokand SpaceXof Elon Musk.



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