Monday, November 20th 2023

OpenAI Names Emmett Shear as CEO, Sam Altman Joins Microsoft and Drags Hundreds of Employees With Him

Updated by
AleksandarK
 Updated: Discuss (43 Comments)
On Friday, the AI world was caught by storm as the board of directors of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT and other AI software, fired its CEO, Sam Altman. According to multiple sources reporting the state of OpenAI, Sam Altman was stunned by the board's decision of his removal, where the company published a public statement with many remarks, primarily informing the public that "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. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."

After Sam Altman's leave, Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, announced that he was also leaving the company. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and other investors have stepped in to lead negotiations between the OpenAI board and Sam Altman to return to his position as the CEO of the non-profit company. However, according to The Information, Sam Altman will not be returning as the CEO, and instead, Emmett Shear will be appointed as the interim CEO of OpenAI. It is also reported that the departure of Sam Altman is now being followed by three senior researchers, Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Madry, and Szymon Sidor, who have left the company to follow Sam Altman's next adventure. They wanted to go back to OpenAI if Mr. Altman would return; however, with Emmett Shear now being appointed as interim CEO, the company is in shambles with its senior staff employment in question.

Update 15:30 UTC: Sam Altman has joined Microsoft alongside Greg Brockman to lead Microsoft's advanced AI research efforts; additionally with hundreds of OpenAI staff wanting to do projects under Sam Altman's lead. Apparently there are 700 members of staff, and 505 of them plan to follow Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman under Microsoft's wing.
Source: The Information

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43 Comments on OpenAI Names Emmett Shear as CEO, Sam Altman Joins Microsoft and Drags Hundreds of Employees With Him

#26
thesmokingman
AssimilatorLMAO what?

OpenAI, like any company was founded to make money first and foremost - the whole non-profit thing is just a smokescreen to divert attention from that goal. My guess is that Altman and his merry band of clowns haven't been able to deliver on their promises to the OpenAI board, and he figured it was only a matter of time before they ditched him for that reason, so he engaged with Microsoft to build a contingency plan for himself. OpenAI found out and had no recourse but to give him the boot.

MS doesn't have a way to quantify the amount of BS Altman spews, since they've been shielded from it thus far by the OpenAI board - thus Altman is free to claim whatever he wants to MS, and Nadella has gone full retard with this committent to "AI" so he'll be lapping it up. It'll take a year or two for MS to figure out, just like OpenAI, that Altman is neither particularly smart nor visionary - just another Silicon Valley charlatan who's able to play politics and obfuscate the truth better than the rest of us who produce actual work - and it'll be interesting to see what happens then. But during that time, countless billions of dollars of good money will be wasted on this stupidity.
Read their mission statement. It was not founded to print money. Btw, one of the key tenets is safety, it's essentially one of the key points to Musks funding. And safety was thrown out the window by Altman.

And yea, who hasn't wondered what shenanigans or machinations have gone on behind closed doors cuz the implosion of OpenAI benefits MSFT as if they planned it all along.
Posted on Reply
#27
dragontamer5788
AssimilatorLMAO what?

OpenAI, like any company was founded to make money first and foremost - the whole non-profit thing is just a smokescreen to divert attention from that goal. My guess is that Altman and his merry band of clowns haven't been able to deliver on their promises to the OpenAI board, and he figured it was only a matter of time before they ditched him for that reason, so he engaged with Microsoft to build a contingency plan for himself. OpenAI found out and had no recourse but to give him the boot.

MS doesn't have a way to quantify the amount of BS Altman spews, since they've been shielded from it thus far by the OpenAI board - thus Altman is free to claim whatever he wants to MS, and Nadella has gone full retard with this committent to "AI" so he'll be lapping it up. It'll take a year or two for MS to figure out, just like OpenAI, that Altman is neither particularly smart nor visionary - just another Silicon Valley charlatan who's able to play politics and obfuscate the truth better than the rest of us who produce actual work - and it'll be interesting to see what happens then. But during that time, countless billions of dollars of good money will be wasted on this stupidity.
The only reason this whole firing and weekend-crisis happened was because the non-profit half was trying to assert control over the profitable half.

And lo-and-behold. The side with money won. As expected. Not by breaking any laws or agreements, but simply with Microsoft writing off ~$10 Billion (the $10 Billion Microsoft invested into the current OpenAI organization, all going to waste) and then buy out the whole team of engineers.
Posted on Reply
#28
skates
My understanding is that one of the founders was behind his firing. Altman was pushing for less safety controls and the founder was able to fire him. If true, sounds like the founder did the right thing in protecting the company and public. Now, let's see what MS does with a guy who wants less controls over AI.
Posted on Reply
#29
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
skatesMy understanding is that one of the founders was behind his firing. Altman was pushing for less safety controls and the founder was able to fire him. If true, sounds like the founder did the right thing in protecting the company and public. Now, let's see what MS does with a guy who wants less controls over AI.
Do you have sources for that? Linkable sources? Only asking because it's important to be able to verify info.
Posted on Reply
#30
thesmokingman
the54thvoidDo you have sources for that? Linkable sources? Only asking because it's important to be able to verify info.
Sutskever apologized for voting Altman out in an about face. That really is a red herring...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1726590052392956028
skatesMy understanding is that one of the founders was behind his firing. Altman was pushing for less safety controls and the founder was able to fire him. If true, sounds like the founder did the right thing in protecting the company and public. Now, let's see what MS does with a guy who wants less controls over AI.
The irony is that Musk believed they fell behind besides the mission issues in '19 and wanted to take over and the board voted nah bro, and choosing to ride it out with Altman. At the same time Tesla AI was taking off so created a conflict of interest with Tesla AI, so Musk left anyways. But it's just so damn hilarious, the foreshadowing from this split with Musk.
Posted on Reply
#32
dragontamer5788
lexluthermiesterThat's not helpful. X requires a login to view post an many of us don't use the platform. Screenshots are always helpful.
The nitter.net trick works for me... at least today it is working. nitter.net/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028

I also don't have a login, but the nitter.net server is what I've been using to get around that problem. It goes down sometimes, depending on Twitter's API changes. So nitter.net isn't perfectly reliable, but it seems to be working today.
Posted on Reply
#33
lexluthermiester
dragontamer5788The nitter.net trick works for me... at least today it is working. nitter.net/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028

I also don't have a login, but the nitter.net server is what I've been using to get around that problem. It goes down sometimes, depending on Twitter's API changes. So nitter.net isn't perfectly reliable, but it seems to be working today.
Nice! Didn't know about that. And thank you.
Posted on Reply
#34
thesmokingman
Hmm, interesting... Musk is following Andrej again. This could signal a return to FSD for Karpathy. I suppose from Andrej's pov, the ship is sinking and joining the dark side is a complete 180 from the original mission.

per Andrej: Thinking a lot about centralization and decentralization these few days.

Tesla = the king of decentralization, hmm?

Man this story keeps getting deeper. Musk had issues with the path of OpenAI going back to 2018/2019. Some key OpenAI players/scientist split from OpenAI in 2020, the AI siblings Amodei whom founded Anthropic. Anthropic continues the safe AI path that OpenAI was originally on. Amazon just invested $4 Billion into Anthropic.

That said, it turns out the OpenAI approached Dario to be CEO if/after a merger of OpenAI and Anthropic. Like dude, the serious questions about Altman's decided change of path for OpenAI is serious, not a small footnote at all. There's a bit of corporate cloak and dagger afoot here.
Posted on Reply
#35
trsttte
lexluthermiesterThat's not helpful. X requires a login to view posts and many of us don't use the platform. Screenshots are always helpful.
Depends on the type of link shared,
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1726590052392956028
this one works without a login this one would work if tpu didn't auto convert twitter links to an embedded thing :banghead:

Let's try this way: https://twitter_com/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028 (replace _ with . )
Posted on Reply
#36
dragontamer5788
trsttteDepends on the type of link shared,
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1726590052392956028
this one works without a login this one would work if tpu didn't auto convert twitter links to an embedded thing :banghead:

Let's try this way: https://twitter_com/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028 (replace _ with . )
Misses context, like replies, other tweets, etc. etc.

Just use nitter.net. :cool:
Posted on Reply
#37
trsttte
dragontamer5788Misses context, like replies, other tweets, etc. etc.

Just use nitter.net. :cool:
Some of the replies are pretty good :D

I'll make this guys words my own

Posted on Reply
#40
Slizzo
Wait, so MS isn't hiring him then?

I guess all the other employees are going to say "just kidding!"?
Posted on Reply
#41
skates
the54thvoidWell, papers signed and, in principle, they've rehired Sam as the CEO.

A new board is to be selected.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67494165
Their AI didn't like the next guy, so did what AI does and corrected the situation, regardless of what the talking meat puppets wanted.
Posted on Reply
#42
ThrashZone
Hi,
Hard to make this stuff up lol
Fire the board instead :laugh:

Funny thing is did he really "drag" the others with him or did they leave voluntarily
Title is off just a tad.
Posted on Reply
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