Unlike In Casablanca, Sam Won't Play Again At OpenAI But At Microsoft!

In fast-paced developments through the weekend, the OpenAI board first named longtime Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati to take charge as interim CEO, only to announce hours later that Emmett Shear, co-founder of interactive live-streaming service Twitch, would replace Altman. At one point, the board even offered to resign, in response to demands from shareholders to take back Altman and Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI who too quit in support of Altman.

By Sunday evening some clarity began to emerge as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sprung his side of surprise, snapping up Altman and Brockman to lead a newly set up advanced AI research team. "We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success,” Nadella said in X post.

Nadella also said that Microsoft, which is the largest shareholder of OpenAI, looked forward to "getting to know" the new CEO and leadership team at OpenAI.

"We remain committed to our partnership with Open AI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners," he said.

Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference of developers, partners and customers hosted by Microsoft. At the 2023 edition of Microsoft Ignite, the company hadannounced several new innovations across its datacenter fleet, including the latest AI-optimized silicon from MIcrosoft's industry partners and two new Microsoft-designed chips.

The New York Times, which had reviewed the internal memo at OpenAI announcing the sacking of Altman, reported that the developments pointed to a disagreement the OpenAI board had with Altman and Brockman.It quoted the memo as stating that the board “firmly stands by its decision as the only path to advance and defend the mission of OpenAI”. The memo, it said, was signed by all four directors on the company’s board: Adam D’Angelo, Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, and Tasha McCauley.

The HardFork, a popular tech podcast hosted by the Times, noted that apart from AI safety, a key concern for two of the board members, Altman's other interests could have played a role in the ouster. Altman was raising a venture fund and was CEO at other businesses including worldcoin, the pod said and speculated about whether the sacked CEO's disclosure form had noted these interests.

“Put simply, Sam’s behavior and lack of transparency in his interactions with the board undermined the board’s ability to effectively supervise the company in the manner it was mandated to do,” the Times said, quoting the memo. Another line from the memo read: “It is paramount that any CEO be honest and transparent with his or her board.”

Among the possibilities touted for Altman's sacking is the fear of AI. The Times said, "Ilya Sutskever, a respected AI researcher who co-founded OpenAI with Mr. Altman and nine other people, was increasingly worried that OpenAI’s technology could be dangerous and that Mr. Altman was not paying enough attention to that risk, according to three people familiar with his thinking. Mr. Sutskever, a member of the company’s board of directors, also objected to what he saw as his diminished role inside the company, according to two of the people."

Sutskever, a former Google employee, and three others on the board, which has six members, forced Altman's exit.

The larger conflict between people who view AI as the next El Dorado and those who view the developments in AI as a haphazard plunge into dangerous terrain impacting human safety has now bubbled up on the backburner where it had been.

Microsoft, which has invested more than US$13 billion in OpenAI, had been dependent on the company for its AI offerings. As the HardFork pod speculated, this could well allow Microsoft to better manage what capabilities OpenAI develops in the future.

And to this end, the Redmond, Washington-based behemoth seems to have hired Altman and Brockman. In the interplay of the binaries of 01 and 10, what goes around does come around.