Sam Altman is returning to lead OpenAI less than five days after his surprise dismissal, which kicked off a tug of war for his talent, left the company in disarray and laid bare deep board divisions over the mission of one of the world’s most valuable start-ups.
OpenAI’s new interim board, which will not include Altman at the outset, will be led by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce. The other directors are Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, and existing member Adam D’Angelo, the co-founder and CEO of Quora Inc.
Altman had been fired on Nov 17 after clashing with the board over his drive to transform OpenAI from a nonprofit organisation focused on the scientific exploration of artificial intelligence into a business that builds products, attracts customers and lines up the funding needed to power AI tools. Members of the former board harboured concerns about the potential harms done by powerful, unchecked AI.
Job one for the interim board will be finding new directors who can strike a better balance between OpenAI’s business imperatives and the need to protect the public from tools capable of creating content that misinforms, worsens inequality or makes it easier for bad actors to inflict violence.
The reconstituted board should reflect greater diversity, said many people, including Ashley Mayer, CEO of Coalition Operators, a venture capital firm.
Investors will also expect changes in the ways the board communicates with stakeholders. Executives at Microsoft Corp, which has said it will invest as much as US$13 billion ($16 billion) in OpenAI, were outraged after being given only a brief heads-up about the board’s plans to fire Altman, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
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Some investors and executives at OpenAI have also complained that the board has not sufficiently explained its rationale for dismissing Altman. Board members said Altman was not “consistently candid in his communications.”
In the days since, board members and staffers have said that the CEO’s removal was unrelated to “malfeasance” or “safety”, leaving an information vacuum. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said publicly that he was not given an explanation.
Microsoft, whose AI strategy hinges on the start-up’s technology, will likely have representation on the new board, whether as an observer or, possibly, with one or more seats, according to one person with knowledge of the matter. Although Altman agreed not to take a board seat initially in order to get the deal done, he too will probably join the board eventually, another person said.
Altman also agreed to an internal investigation into the conduct that led to his dismissal, another person said. OpenAI’s earlier board members included D’Angelo, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Tasha McCauley of GeoSim Systems, and Helen Toner, director at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. — Bloomberg
