More than three months after OpenAI’s board briefly ousted Sam Altman, the prominent artificial intelligence company’s chief executive, questions remain as to exactly what prompted the board to take this dramatic step.
A report from an outside law firm expected in the coming days could shed more light on the board’s decision as well as the chaotic five days before Mr. Altman’s return to the company.
But as anticipation for the report grows, previously undisclosed details are emerging about the role Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, played in Mr. Altman’s ouster.
Ms. Murati wrote a private memo to Mr. Altman raising questions about his management and also sharing her concerns with the board. That move helped spur the board’s decision to oust him, say people with knowledge of the board’s discussions who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of a personnel matter.
Around the same time, Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist at OpenAI, raised similar concerns, citing what he described as manipulative behavior by Mr. Altman, the people said. Both executives described a hot-and-cold relationship with Mr. Altman. While it wasn’t clear whether they cited specific examples, the executives said he sometimes created a toxic work environment by removing executives who didn’t support his decisions, the people said.
Ms. Murati’s interactions with the board offer insight into the problems simmering at OpenAI’s executive levels, although both executives publicly supported Mr. Altman’s return to the company.
WilmerHale, the law firm conducting the investigation, is expected to complete the trial soon. The company is expected to announce a new board at the same time, some people said. Several directors left the board after Mr. Altman returned to the company in November.
Hannah Wong, a spokeswoman for OpenAI, said in a statement that the company’s leadership team, led by Ms. Murati during her time as interim chief, had unanimously called for Mr. Altman’s return, as had an open letter written by 95 percent was signed by OpenAI employees.
“The strong support of his team underscores that he is an effective CEO who is open to different viewpoints, willing to solve complex challenges and who cares about his team,” said Ms. Wong. “We look forward to the results of the independent review comparing unfounded allegations.”
Mr. Altman declined to comment. Mr Sutskever’s lawyer, Alex Weingarten, said claims he had contacted the board were “categorically false”.
Ms. Murati did not respond to a request for comment. But in a message to OpenAI employees after this article was published, she said that she and Mr. Altman “have a strong and productive partnership and I have not shied away from sharing feedback directly with him.”
She added: “When individual board members reached out to me directly for feedback on Sam, I gave it – all the feedback Sam already knew,” and that didn’t mean they were “responsible for the old board’s actions was or supported it”.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems.)
Since November, OpenAI and its investors have struggled to contain the fallout from the incident, which threatened to upend one of the tech industry’s most important startups. OpenAI was valued at more than $80 billion in its latest funding round.
Much of OpenAI’s 700-plus remaining employees — many of whom threatened to quit when Mr. Altman was fired — are hoping to put November’s events behind them. (Some staff refer to this period as “The Blip.”)
But there are others who hope the WilmerHale investigation will provide a thorough explanation of the events surrounding Mr. Altman’s firing. It is not clear whether the full report or a summary of it will be made available to the public.
At the time of Mr. Altman’s firing, OpenAI’s six-member board included Drs. Sutskever on; Helen Toner, an AI researcher working at a think tank at Georgetown University; Adam D’Angelo, a former Facebook executive; Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of the company; Tasha McCauley, associate senior management scholar at the RAND Corporation; and Mr. Altman.
As a condition of Mr. Altman’s reinstatement, executives agreed to reshuffle OpenAI’s board to include a more diverse and independent group of directors. OpenAI’s six-member board was reduced to a three-member interim board: Bret Taylor, a former Salesforce and Facebook executive, joined as chairman and helped appoint a new group of directors. Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, also joined. Mr. D’Angelo remains on the board.
In October, Ms. Murati approached some board members and expressed concerns about Mr. Altman’s leadership, the people said.
She described what some viewed as Mr. Altman’s playbook, which included manipulating executives to get what he wanted. At first, Ms. Murati said Mr. Altman would tell people what they wanted to hear to charm them and support his decisions. If they didn’t follow his plans or took too long to make a decision, he would try to undermine the credibility of those who challenged him, the people said.
Ms. Murati told the board that she had previously sent a private memo to Mr. Altman outlining some of her concerns about his behavior and shared with the board some details of the memo, the people said.
At about the same time in October, Dr. Sutskever to board members and expressed similar concerns about Mr. Altman, the people said.
Some board members feared that Ms. Murati and Dr. Sutskever would leave the company if Mr. Altman’s conduct was not remedied. They also feared that the company would experience an exodus of talent as top lieutenants left the company.
There were other factors that went into the decision. Some members were concerned about the creation of the OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture fund created by Mr. Altman. Unlike a typical corporate investment fund, which is a legal extension of the company, Mr. Altman was the legal owner of the OpenAI fund and raised money from outside limited partners. OpenAI said the structure was temporary and that Mr. Altman would not derive any financial benefit from it.
The OpenAI fund used this money to invest in other artificial intelligence startups. Some board members were concerned that Mr. Altman was using the fund to circumvent the accountability of OpenAI’s nonprofit governance structure. Last year they confronted Mr. Altman over his legal ownership and operational control of the fund.
Axios has previously reported on Mr. Altman’s control of the OpenAI fund.
Board members began discussing their next steps after Ms. Murati and Dr. Sutskever had turned to them. By mid-November, the board planned to name Ms. Murati as interim chief while also searching for a new CEO, the people said. The board fired Mr. Altman on Nov. 17.
In the days that followed, Mr. Altman waged a public battle to regain his position, using a mix of public pressure and powerful allies in Silicon Valley to push for his reinstatement. Most of OpenAI’s 770 employees threatened to resign if he was not reinstated as CEO. Ms. Murati and Dr. Sutskever quickly – and publicly – said they supported Mr. Altman’s return to the company. Dr. Sutskever has not returned to his regular duties at the company, some people said.
After five days of public back and forth, Mr. Altman returned to work.
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2024-03-08 03:03:22
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