OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been ousted by the company he co-founded. But what happened next was extraordinary and testified to the power of influential leadership.
The circumstances that surrounded the sudden and unexpected firing of former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this past weekend shook the entire tech world, and the business world at large. Over the last year, Altman has largely been regarded as the face of the new AI industry boom, and has been invited by world leaders such as at the UK’s AI Safety Summit held November, to discuss regulatory concerns and the impact of AI on humanity. This is predominantly due to his role in launching ChatGPT almost a year ago to the date.
But on Friday, without prior warning or indication of this coming, he was booted out due to «a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board,» as the company reported. The exact reasons behind his departure are still unclear at the time of writing.
But what made this firing all the more extraordinary are the events that followed. The board likely didn’t see it coming prior to making the final decision, as is evidenced by an X post by Ilya Sutskever, one of the four board members responsible for the decision to oust Altman, in which he tweeted: «I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI.»
However it turns out that there was nothing specific to the technology that was the problem, as the company later confirmed. Whatever the breakdown in communication or misunderstandings were, no sooner had the news of Altman being ousted from his company been circulated across the media than his followers, OpenAI employees, and partners in the industry including most notably, Microsoft, rallied to support him.
After it was confirmed Monday that Altman would not return to OpenAI, more than 700 of ChatGPT parent’s employees threatened to resign if the board that ousted Altman do not change, according to the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, the company’s president, Greg Brockman, and three other senior researches left on Friday.
