To say that the situation at OpenAI has been tense in recent days would be quite an understatement. On the same day, Greg Brockman, another co-founder of the company, technological director and member of the Supervisory Board, who was removed from this body a few hours earlier (who is one of the main shareholders in OpenAI), resigned from his job. On Monday, 505 of the company’s 707 employees threatened to leave their jobs if the supervisory board did not resign.
The process in which you fired Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board of directors jeopardizes all of our work and undermines the company’s mission. Your decisions have clearly demonstrated that you do not have the authority to oversee OpenAI
– we read in a letter published by journalist Kara Swisher.
OpenAI employees gave the management an ultimatum. Most of the company’s employees want to leave
Employees accuse the company that despite cooperation from the management, they did not present any written evidence against Altman. In their opinion, the council conducted negotiations in bad faith. “Management has worked with you to find a mutually agreeable solution. And yet, two days after your initial decision, you dismissed interim CEO Mira Murati against the best interests of the company. Additionally, you told management that allowing the company’s destruction would be ‘consistent with its mission'”.
The employees who signed the letter stated that they are therefore unable to work with people who lack “competence, judgment and concern for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may leave OpenAI and join a new Microsoft project led by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Microsoft has assured that it has jobs for all OpenAI employees that we can accept. We will take this step soon unless the board resigns and appoints two independent directors like Bret Taylor and Wild Hurd, and if it reinstates Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman.”
The OpenAI Supervisory Board announced the reasons for the removal on Friday in a very laconic and short statement, stating that the CEO “was not consistently honest in his communication with the management board”, which allegedly made it difficult for him to perform his duties. Details were not provided.
One of the main perpetrators of the confusion signed the letter
Among others, she declared her readiness to leave OpenAI if there are no changes at the top. Mira Murati, who was to temporarily replace Sam Altman. But the board quickly named her a new interim CEO, Emmet Shear, co-founder and until April CEO of live-streaming company Twitch.
The signatories of the letter also include Ilya Sutskever, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, who is one of the organization’s scientists. A conflict arose between him and Altman, which was related to the fact that Altman was aggressively trying to attract new investors, regardless of the risks associated with , which did not please the main OpenAI researchers. Sutskever was also concerned about his weakening position in the company.
On Monday, Sutskever wrote on X that he “deeply regrets his involvement in the activities of the supervisory board.” He added that his goal was never to harm OpenAI. “I love everything we have built together here and I will do everything in my power to bring the company back together,” the researcher wrote. Polish quantum physicist Andrzej Dragan responded to his post. “People who build General Artificial Intelligence are unable to predict the consequences of their actions three days in advance,” a Pole commented sarcastically on the confusion at OpenAI.
Source: Gazeta
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