Turmoil at OpenAI: after firing Sam Altman, what’s next for the home of ChatGPT?
Illustration: The VergeOpenAI’s board removed CEO Sam Altman, and the former chairman just quit. Now it’s unclear what the future holds for a leader in generative artificial intelligence tools. Continue reading…
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On November 17th, OpenAI’s board abruptly announced that co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was out, effective immediately. Without saying it directly, the board revealed Altman was fired after a review “concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”
What caused the board to lose confidence in his ability to lead OpenAI is unknown. In the preceding days, everyone had continued acting as though everything was normal, with insiders at OpenAI and partners like Microsoft surprised to learn of Altman’s ouster only moments before it was announced.
Within hours, fellow co-founder and former chair Greg Brockman announced that “based on today’s news, I quit.” OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, has been appointed interim CEO for now.
The shakeup comes just shy of one year after the launch of ChatGPT, which quickly entered mainstream conversation, became one of the fastest-growing apps in history, and initiated an industry-wide race to build generative AI tools and hardware to power them. At OpenAI’s first developer conference just a week before his ouster, Altman said the service had over 100 million weekly users, and more than two million developers were building on the company’s APIs.
All of the news and updates about OpenAI’s executive turnover continue below.
This is how OpenAI fired its CEO, Sam Altman.
Former OpenAI president and chair Greg Brockman’s post on X tells his version of the events that pushed Sam Altman out of OpenAI (Altman reshared the post, and put up a message that today “has been sorta like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive”).
According to Brockman, OpenAI Chief Scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever texted Altman on Thursday night asking to talk at noon on Friday (November 17th). At noon, on a Google Meet call with Sutskever, as well as non-employee board members Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, “Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon.”
Within minutes, Sutskever invited Brockman to a Google Meet call where he was informed of his removal from the board “...and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post.”
What happened to Sam Altman?
Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds
On Thursday night, Sam Altman showed up at a warehouse in Oakland to talk to a room full of artists about generative AI. It was a busy day; just hours before, he was onstage at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in downtown San Francisco speaking to world leaders.
At the Oakland warehouse, Altman was his usual self, cheering OpenAI’s work and coming across as relaxed, according to someone in the audience. He couldn’t linger, though. At about 7:40PM he told the room that he was running late to a meeting and bounced.
OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman is leaving, too
Illustration: The Verge
Sam Altman isn’t the only major OpenAI executive leaving the company on Friday. Hours after Altman was fired, with the board saying it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” co-founder and former board chair Greg Brockman revealed on X that he is also quitting.
When OpenAI announced the “leadership transition” and that CTO Mira Murati would take over as interim CEO, it said that Brockman would step down as chairman but remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO. Just a few hours later, that’s no longer true.
Sam Altman makes his first statement after getting ousted from OpenAI.
The former CEO was suddenly fired by OpenAI’s board on Friday, and in a post on X, he gave no details on what happened but said he’ll “have more to say about what’s next later.”
Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI
OpenAI
Sam Altman has been fired as CEO of OpenAI, the company announced on Friday.
“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company said in its blog post. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
OpenAI is letting anyone create their own version of ChatGPT
Illustration: The Verge
With the release of ChatGPT one year ago, OpenAI introduced the world to the idea of an AI chatbot that can seemingly do anything. Now, the company is releasing a platform for making custom versions of ChatGPT for specific use cases — no coding required.
In the coming weeks, these AI agents, which OpenAI is calling GPTs, will be accessible through the GPT Store. Details about how the store will look and work are scarce for now, though OpenAI is promising to eventually pay creators an unspecified amount based on how much their GPTs are used. GPTs will be available to paying ChatGPT Plus subscribers and OpenAI enterprise customers, who can make internal-only GPTs for their employees.
