Sam Altman To Return As OpenAI CEO As New Board Collaborating ‘To Figure Out Details
Sam Altman will return as the CEO of OpenAI, and there will be a new board chaired by Bret Taylor, along with Larry Summers and Adam D’Angelo.
While Taylor is the former co-CEO of Salesforce, Summers is a former United States Secretary of the Treasury. D’Angelo is the only continuing OpenAI board member. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Quora.
The details of Altman’s return are being hashed out, and both parties are collaborating to finalize the fine print.
This announcement follows days of high-fever drama that threatened to rip apart the Microsoft Corp.-backed OpenAI.
“I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together,” Altman said in a statement.
“With the new board and with Satya’s [Nadella] support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with Microsoft,” Altman added.
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also issued a statement, saying, “this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”
Altman and former president Greg Brockman will continue to be a part of the OpenAI leadership team, according to Nadella.
Undoing The Dramatic Twists: Altman’s return as the OpenAI CEO might not be all that surprising, given that over 95% of the company’s employees had signed a letter threatening to quit the company and join Altman at Microsoft.
However, it’s still a dramatic turnaround, given that the company’s board appointed former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear on Monday.
Nadella, after reportedly being furious about Altman’s firing from OpenAI, stepped in to bring Altman to Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. He also brought in Brockman, who supported Altman throughout the drama at OpenAI.
Nadella also said every OpenAI employee will have a position in this new AI division at Microsoft, essentially mirroring the organizational setup at OpenAI sans the board that fired Altman.
On his part, Shear dismissed reports that said Altman was fired from OpenAI due to AI safety concerns.
