For the second day of trading, Sunday, investors and employees tried to reverse the balance and plead for the return of former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The latter showed up in the afternoon at the premises, with a temporary badge.
But why did Sam Altman post a selfie with a guest badge at the OpenAI premises on Sunday afternoon in San Francisco? The company that he was still managing two days ago underwent a very public shake-up the day before this weekend and now everything could already be turned upside down again. After the mysterious vote of the members of the board of directors, who decided to remove Sam Altman from his functions (and Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI, from his), investors and employees revolted.
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After a new day of negotiations behind closed doors, it would emerge that the former boss of Twitch Emmett Shear was appointed by the board of directors to replace Sam Altman, despite his appointment or the extension of that of Mira Murati, acting. Earlier, on Saturday, three researchers and senior employees decided to leave the company in support of their former CEO. “I love the OpenAI team so much”, posted Sam Altman on the social network X (formerly Twitter) yesterday. A message re-shared by Greg Brockman, who also decided to leave the company, and Mira Murati.
Fired for his “lack of frankness in communications” with the board of directors, no details were given over the weekend on the detailed reasons for the more than brutal departure of the former CEO, at the head of the company since its beginnings in 2015. The deadline before the end of negotiations was set at 5 p.m. local time yesterday, according to information from the American site The Verge. Sam Altman would have visited the offices under the visitor’s badge “for the first and last time” he wrote. It would appear that his presence was necessary within the framework of the ” last part “ negotiations, shared The Verge.
first and last time i ever wear one of these pic.twitter.com/u3iKwyWj0a
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 19, 2023
Microsoft, Thrive Capitals and Khosla Ventures back Sam Altman
“We are still working towards a resolution and remain optimistic”wrote Jason Kwon, in charge of strategy at OpenAI, in response to requests from the newspaper The Information. “By resolution, we mean bringing back Sam, Greg, Jakub, Szymon, Aleksander and other colleagues and remaining the place where people who want to work on AGI’s research, security, products (artificial general intelligence) and politicians can do their best”.
At Wall Street Journal to add that sources would have informed them that Sam Altman had agreed to return to his post with the condition however of overthrowing the board of directors. His second plan would be to start a new company and move away from OpenAI for good. The Bloomberg agency spoke yesterday of a new project of chips boosted with artificial intelligence, to compete with Nvidia.
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According to The Guardian, Microsoft, Thrive Capitals and Khosla Ventures, the three main investors of OpenAI, support the return of Sam Altman. Khosla Ventures also reportedly indicated that they would continue to support it “in whatever he does next”.