OpenAI employees learned of Altman’s departure at the same time as the rest of the tech world. Just after 12:30 p.m. US time, the company released a scathing statement announcing Altman’s departure and her replacement by CTO Mira Murati.
OpenAI and Microsoft employees were “completely shocked,” people at both companies told Business Insider. A short meeting was held at OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, where the public statement was repeated and people were encouraged to remain calm.
As an OpenAI insider told Business Insider, the company’s employees are happy that at least Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist, co-founder and board member of OpenAI, is still with them. He has been a respected leader of the company for years and has been “in charge” of the technical work for some time.
See also: Ikar from Silicon Valley, who is not only responsible for ChatGPT. Who is Sam Altman?
However, the peace proved short-lived. Another shocker came about an hour later when OpenAI co-founder and CEO Greg Brockman announced that he had “resigned” due to Altman’s ouster.. The company told employees in an email, also posted on X, that it did so “based on today’s news.” The company’s statement shows that Brockman has already been removed as president of OpenAI.
An artificial intelligence person who doesn’t work at OpenAI but knows many people at the company called the sudden change in leadership “historic.” She compared Altman’s forced departure to when Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985 after a clash with its then-CEO.
OpenAI and Microsoft insiders agreed that the move was sudden. Microsoft, however, claims to support the new leader of its partner. “We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver our innovation program and exciting product roadmap; we remain committed to our partnership, as well as to Mira and her team. Together, we will continue to deliver the significant benefits of this technology,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in the statement.
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There may have been signs that all was not well in OpenAI’s operations, a Microsoft employee told BI.
“I think its valuation is huge and there are good things happening around AI, but the reality is that from an economic standpoint you have to charge more than $30 for AI features in order to meet basic infrastructure costs, which are double or more what AI costs. people are paying for a productivity tool right now,” a Microsoft employee said.
“OpenAI will also need to continually spend billions on model training,” he added.
See also: Altman, Musk and Zuckerberg create AI regulations behind closed doors in the Senate. What awaits us?
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nadella’s statement also mentions the company’s recent technology conference, confirming its commitment to artificial intelligence. “As you saw this week at Microsoft Ignite, we continue to rapidly innovate in the AI era, with more than 100 announcements across the technology spectrum, from AI systems, models and tools in Azure to Copilot. all this to our customers while building the future.
The text above is a reprint from the US edition of Insider, entirely prepared by its editorial staff.
