Talks to bring Sam Altman back to OpenAI extend into the weekend
Talks at OpenAI to bring back Sam Altman, the artificial intelligence startup’s recently ousted CEO, continued Sunday afternoon, but there were disagreements over the composition of the company’s board of directors, according to two people familiar with the matter with the discussions.
Mr. Altman, 38, waged a pressure campaign all weekend on the startup’s four-member board of directors, which ousted him Friday afternoon, three people familiar with the matter said. The result was a groundswell of support from OpenAI investors, employees, and executives.
Mr. Altman was at OpenAI headquarters on Sunday afternoon. He posted a photo of himself on X, formerly Twitter, wearing a guest identification badge and said, “the first and last time I’ll ever wear one.”
The negotiations included looking at how the company’s board of directors might be reshaped if Mr. Altman returns as CEO, two of the people said. Board members have not yet agreed on what a restructured board might look like — and Mr. Altman’s reinstatement is not inevitable, two of the people said.
There has been a whirlwind of activity since Mr. Altman was forced out of OpenAI, a company he helped found eight years ago that has become one of the most watched companies in tech thanks to its popular ChatGPT chatbot.
On Sunday afternoon, Will Hurd, a former OpenAI board member and a former Republican congressman from Texas, stood outside the company’s headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission district waiting for a ride to the airport after spending two days researching Mr. Altman’s details. dismissal.
Mr. Hurd said a company representative called him Friday morning, before Mr. Altman’s removal, and asked for his help in navigating the leadership turmoil. Mr. Hurd traveled from Texas to San Francisco on Saturday.
“The industry is important, the company is important,” Mr. Hurd said. “This is the future. How do we ensure that there is a level of trust and transparency? Everything we expect from models, we want from management.”
OpenAI declined to comment.
OpenAI’s board of directors is unique. The organization started as a nonprofit before transforming itself into a for-profit company and bringing in Microsoft as its largest investor. The for-profit company is still accountable to the nonprofit board. As a result, the company’s investors have had no official say in what happens to the startup or who runs it.
Before Mr. Altman was forced out, OpenAI had six board members, including Mr. Altman and Greg Brockman, the company’s co-founder and chairman, who resigned Friday in solidarity with Mr. Altman.
The other board members are Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI; Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora, the question-and-answer site; Helen Toner, director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology; and Tasha McCauley, an entrepreneur and computer scientist.
Since Friday, people close to the company have been trying to figure out why the board fired Mr. Altman. Brad Lightcap, the company’s chief operating officer, said in a letter to employees on Saturday that there was no “crime”.
The standoff is the latest twist in a series of power struggles at OpenAI. The battle drew attention to a long-standing divide in the AI community between people who believe AI is the greatest business opportunity in a generation, and others who worry that moving too quickly could be dangerous.
The company was recently in talks to raise a new round of financing that would value the company at well over $80 billion. Bloomberg News earlier reported some details of the discussions.
Mr Altman’s potential reinstatement would mark a dramatic turnaround for OpenAI, which said he had not been “consistently candid” in his discussions with the board when it unceremoniously ousted him.
As deliberations continued Sunday, executives at OpenAI called in resources. At 12:45 p.m., a delivery person appeared outside with a dozen drinks from the Boba Guys chain on a motorcycle with two bags. Another delivery person followed later with half a dozen more drinks.