Whether he lands at Microsoft or successfully retakes the throne at OpenAI, one thing is certain about Sam Altman’s future.
It’s been four full days since Sam Altman’s shocking dismissal from OpenAI, and we still have no idea where he’s going to land. There are suggestions that Altman, one of the most powerful figures in AI, could return to the company if the board changes significantly—talks are reportedly under way. But there is also an offer on the table from Microsoft to start a new AI research group there, which would be a cruelly ironic outcome for OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit with the goal of drawing talent away from Silicon Valley’s biggest companies and developing AI safely.
How Altman got to this moment is telling. In the days after his firing, he managed to prove that he is far more than a figurehead, winning over a majority of OpenAI employees (including Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and the reported architect of his dismissal—it’s, uh, complicated) and some of the tech industry’s biggest luminaries. A number of OpenAI’s most powerful investors rallied around him. Altman may no longer run his own company, but, for now, he is emboldened. On Twitter this weekend, legions of OpenAI employees signaled their loyalty to him “I am Spartacus!”–style; Altman responded with a flurry of heart emojis. Getting unexpectedly fired in front of a global audience is assuredly stressful, but one gets the sense that it also amounted to a huge ego flex for the 38-year-old tech executive. You can see it in the weekend’s most indelible image: a selfie tweeted by Altman on Sunday as he visited OpenAI’s San Francisco offices to continue negotiations, lips pursed in mock disgust, a visitor’s lanyard clutched in his hand.
