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A photo of Sam Altman speaking at a conference for OpenAI.

Firing of Sam Altman from OpenAI

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Updated Nov 22, 2023 at 12:02PM EST by sakshi.

Added Nov 18, 2023 at 07:39AM EST by sakshi.

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Related Explainer: Why Did OpenAI Fire Sam Altman? Helen Toner And The E/Acc vs. Effective Altruism Divide Explained

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Overview

Firing of Sam Altman from OpenAI, also known as Sam Altman Ousted From OpenAI, refers to the dismissal of former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on November 17th, 2023, that led to a spurt of memes and speculation about the internal workings of the company behind ChatGPT in the latter half of 2023. Altman was fired from his position while Greg Brockman was released as the chairman of the board of directors. AI and tech enthusiasts on X and Reddit, among other sites, shared memes and discourse about Altman's controversial firing, which was reportedly due to him withholding information from the board.

Background

On November 17th, 2023, artificial intelligence research organization Open AI (who created products like GPT and DALL-E) released a statement from their board of directors saying that CEO Sam Altman had been fired due to his history of "not [being] consistently candid in his communications with the board."[1]

The letter (shown below) also stated that Greg Brockman would be released from his position as chairman of the board, however, he would retain his role at the company, reporting to the CEO. Additionally, the letter noted that Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, was appointed as interim CEO.


OpenAl announces leadership transition November 17, 2023 Authors OpenAl↓ Announcements Chief technology officer Mira Murati appointed interim CEO to lead OpenAl; Sam Altman departs the company. Search process underway to identify permanent successor. The board of directors of OpenAI, Inc., the 501(c)(3) that acts as the overall governing body for all OpenAl activities, today announced that Sam Altman will depart as CEO and leave the board of directors. Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately. A member of OpenAl's leadership team for five years, Mira has played a critical role in OpenAl's evolution into a global Al leader. She brings a unique skill set, understanding of the company's values, operations, and business, and already leads the company's research, product, and safety functions. Given her long tenure and close engagement with all aspects of the company, including her experience in Al governance and policy, the board believes she is uniquely qualified for the role and anticipates a seamless transition while it conducts a formal search for a permanent CEO. Mr. Altman's departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAl. In a statement, the board of directors said: "OpenAl was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this mission. We are grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAl. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward. As the leader of the company's research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO. We have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead OpenAI during this transition period." OpenAl's board of directors consists of OpenAl chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, independent directors Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology's Helen Toner. As a part of this transition, Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board and will remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO. OpenAl was founded as a non-profit in 2015 with the core mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. In 2019, OpenAI restructured to ensure that the company could raise capital in pursuit of this mission, while preserving the nonprofit's mission, governance, and oversight. The majority of the board is independent, and the independent directors do not hold equity in OpenAl. While the company has experienced dramatic growth, it remains the fundamental governance responsibility of the board to advance OpenAl's mission and preserve the principles of its Charter.

The news was shared by OpenAI's official X account on November 17th,[2] and was discussed on the /r/Futurology and /r/Technology subreddits shortly after.[3][4]

Developments

On November 17th, 2023, Greg Brockman took to his X[5] account to detail the events leading up to the firing. The post recounted how Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and co-founder at OpenAI, had texted Altman on Thursday to schedule a Friday afternoon call (seen below).


Greg Brockman @gdb Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today. Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAl, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out. We too are still trying to figure out exactly what happened. Here is what we know: - Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon. - At 12:19pm, Greg got a text from Ilya asking for a quick call. At 12:23pm, Ilya sent a Google Meet link. Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAl published a blog post. - As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior. The outpouring of support has been really nice; thank you, but please don't spend any time being concerned. We will be fine. Greater things coming soon. : 11:42 PM Nov 17, 2023 7.5M Views • .

Also on November 17th, Altman took to his X[6] account to publish a post acknowledging his firing, saying that he "loved my time at openai" and that he "will have more to say about what’s next later." The post gathered over 98,000 likes in three days (seen below).


Sam Altman @sama i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people. will have more to say about what's next later. 4:46 PM Nov 17, 2023 24.8M Views :

According to the New York Times,[7] OpenAI held an all-hands meeting the afternoon after its announcement on November 17th where Ilya Sutskever defended Altman's ousting, saying that it was not a hostile takeover but a necessary move in order to protect OpenAI’s mission of "making AI beneficial to humanity."

On the evening of November 17th, Brockman then made another post to his X[8] account to announce his voluntary resignation from OpenAI (shown below). Brockman's announcement was closely followed by Director of Research Jakub Pachocki and Head of Preparedness Aleksander Madry resigning as well.


Greg Brockman @gdb After learning today's news, this is the message I sent to the OpenAl team: hi everyone, i'm super proud of what we've all built together since starting in my apartment 8 years ago. we've been through tough & great times together, accomplishing so much despite all the reasons it should have been impossible. but based on today's news, i quit. genuinely wishing you all nothing but the best. i continue to believe in the mission of creating safe AGI that benefits all of humanity. Sam Altman @sama Nov 17 i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people. will have more to say about what's next later. ... Show more 7:09 PM . Nov 17, 2023 20.3M Views !

Internal and Investor Backlash Against Altman's Firing

According to Axios,[9] OpenAI's COO Brad Lightcap circulated an internal memo saying that the company's management team was not involved in Atlman's firing and that the decision was not based on any "malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices."

Moreover, Altman's ousting jeopardized the upcoming sale of OpenAI employee shares, which initially valued the company at $86 billion. According to TechCrunch, OpenAI's board of investors expressed their unhappiness with the company's decision and with the public outcry against Altman's firing.[10]

On November 19th, 2023, OpenAI appointed another CEO, Emmett Shear, the cofounder of the video streaming site Twitch, as a replacement for Murati. Murati has notably been publically supportive of Altman throughout the ordeal.[11]

On November 20th, Altman and Brockman then announced their plans to join Satya Nadella at Microsoft, heading a new advanced artificial intelligence research team (shown below). The duo were reportedly joined by several high-profile colleagues from OpenAI.[12]


99 Sam Altman @sama. Nov 20 the mission continues Satya Nadella @satyanadella. Nov 20 We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAl and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett... Show more 2.1K Satya Nadella @satyanadella 18.8K 63K 3:24 AM. Nov 20, 2023 7.6M Views ılı 10M 口企 I'm super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation. We've learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I'm looking forward to having you do the same. Greg Brockman @gdb We are going to build something new & it will be incredible. Initial leadership (more soon): @merettm @sidorszymon @aleks_madry @sama @gdb The mission continues. Satya Nadella Replying to @sama I'm super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation. We've learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios,... Show more @satyanadella. Nov 20 4:17 AM • Nov 20, 2023 4.3M Views

Also on November 20th, Ilya Sutskever made a post on X[13] (seen below) seemingly backtracking on his role in Altman's firing, saying, "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company."


Ilya Sutskever @ilyasut I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAl. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company. 8:15 AM Nov 20, 2023 24.8M Views . Follow • ...

OpenAI Employees Threaten To Resign

Early on the morning of November 20th, 2023, several OpenAI employees posted the phrase "OpenAI is nothing without its people" on X (shown below).[15][16][17][18]


Michelle Fradin @michelle_fradin OpenAl is nothing without its people 5:16 AM • Nov 20, 2023 69.5K Views In Chelsea Sierra Voss @csvoss OpenAl is nothing without its people 5:05 AM. Nov 20, 2023 2M Views
Maddie Simens @maddiesimens OpenAl is nothing without its people 5:23 AM . Nov 20, 2023 2M Views Follow Jason Wei @_jasonwei OpenAl is nothing without its people 5:12 AM. Nov 20, 2023 331.7K Views . Follow ...

On November 20th, over 700 OpenAI employees signed a letter[14] threatening mass resignation if Altman was not reinstated to his position as CEO of OpenAI. The letter (shown below) comes a day after Microsoft's Satya Nadella offered OpenAI employees the opportunity to join Microsoft under Altman's leadership. According to reports, 95 percent of the company's 770 employees had signed the letter by Monday evening.[29]

To the Board of Directors at OpenAl, OpenAl is the world's leading Al company. We, the employees of OpenAI, have developed the best models and pushed the field to new frontiers. Our work on Al safety and governance shapes global norms. The products we built are used by millions of people around the world. Until now, the company we work for and cherish has never been in a stronger position. The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company. Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAl. When we all unexpectedly learned of your decision, the leadership team of OpenAl acted swiftly to stabilize the company. They carefully listened to your concerns and tried to cooperate with you on all grounds. Despite many requests for specific facts for your allegations, you have never provided any written evidence. They also increasingly realized you were not capable of carrying out your duties, and were negotiating in bad faith. The leadership team suggested that the most stabilizing path forward - the one that would best serve our mission, company, stakeholders, employees and the public - would be for you to resign and put in place a qualified board that could lead the company forward in stability. Leadership worked with you around the clock to find a mutually agreeable outcome. Yet within two days of your initial decision, you again replaced interim CEO Mira Murati against the best interests of the company. You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed "would be consistent with the mission." Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAl. We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAl and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join. We will take this step imminently, unless all current board members resign, and the board appoints two new lead independent directors, such as Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. 1. Mira Murati 2. Brad Lightcap 3. Jason Kwon 4. Wojciech Zaremba 5. Alec Radford 6. Anna Makanju 7. Bob McGrew 8. Srinivas Narayanan 9. Che Chang 10. Lillian Weng 11. Mark Chen 12. Ilya Sutskever !


Speculations About Who Instigated Altman's Firing

Some internet users speculated if Quora CEO, Poe founder and OpenAI board member Adam D'Angelo was responsible for Altman's firing. For example, on November 20th, 2023, X[23] user @scottastevenson and Redditor[24] /u/Bakagami- made posts alluding to D'Angelo's role in the controversy (seen below).


Scott Stevenson @scottastevenson Ilya held his opinion that loosely, then who was the driving force at the board table? "Not consistently candid" = "You didn't tell me you were going to humiliate me by competing with my product launch" It's looking increasingly likely that it was @adamdangelo, who was likely upset that his product launch got destroyed by Custom GPTs ... : This likely got spun into: "How can we trust you if you didn't tell us about this in advance" If this is what happened @eshear needs to help repair what was broken quickly. x.com/adamdangelo/st... 5:35 PM . Nov 20, 2023 531.1K Views . 355 Discussion Wait a f------ f---, how on earth is the Quora CEO on OpenAl's board? How is that even allowed? (self.singularity) submitted 12 hours ago by Bakagami- Seriously how did he even get in the board. This guy runs a company which is at existential risk because of generative ai like chatGPT. And what's more, guess what else Quora recently made? That's right, Poe. An AI chat interface where you can create different bots by connecting to third party API's. That's EXACTLY what GPTS were going to be. What else did they very recently introduce to Poe, you ask? Well, revenue sharing for bot creators. Yep, you heared that right >.> Again, EXACTLY what GPTS were going to do. "Dev Day was a mistake" I've read this sort of cryptic message a few times the past day, it makes so much more sense now. Jesus f---, who let a direct competitor into their board? Is this even legally allowed? This guy has absolutely nothing to gain from a successful OpenAI but everything to lose. Holy hell. I have no idea about the other 2 board members, but wouldn't be surprised if they have similar conflicting interests. Basically all they needed was to convice Ilya to help them, then they could kick out Sam and would have a majority in the board. Goodness... 142 comments source share save hide report crosspost hide all child comments

Dustin Moskovitz was also discussed as a possible instigator in Altman's firing, as seen in a post by X[25] user @pnegahdar (seen below). However, he denied the allegations on his Threads account, saying that the news came as a surprise to him on November 17th, 2023.[26]


Parham @pnegahdar Dustin Moskovitz enters the chat! A tedmiston 4 minutes ago | next [-] Boosting this deeply nested interesting comment from @alephnerd to the top level: > As I posted elsewhere, I think this is a conflict between Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Altman. Ilya may have been brought into this without his knowledge (which might explain why he retracted his position). Dustin Moskovitz was an early employee at FB, and the founder of Asana. He also created (along with plenty of MSFT bigwigs) a non-profit called Open Philanthropy, which was a early proponent of a form of Effective Altruism and also gave OpenAI their $30M grant. He is also one of the early investors in Anthropic. > Most of the OpenAI board members are related to Dustin Moskovitz this way. > - Adam D'Angelo is on the board of Asana and is a good friend to both Moskovitz and Altman > - Helen Toner worked for Dustin Moskovitz at Open Philanthropy and managed their grant to OpenAI. She was also a member of the Centre for the Governance of AI when McCauley was a board member there. Shortly after Toner left, the Centre for the Governance of AI got a $1M grant from Open Philanthropy and McCauley joined the board of OpenAI > - Tasha McCauley represents the Centre for the Governance of AI, which Dustin Moskovitz gave a $1M grant to via Open Philanthropy and McCauley ended up joining the board of OpenAI > Over the past few months, Dustin Moskovitz has also been increasingly warning about AI Safety. > In essense, it looks like a split between Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38353330 reply 5:29 PM . Nov 20, 2023 336.1K Views ... : !

Online Reactions

Initial reactions to the news in late November 2023 showed tech and AI enthusiasts expressing their shock over Altman's firing, given that he had played a critical role in modeling OpenAI's public image, and undertaken the task of fundraising for the company.

X[19] user @nullpointered posted a meme on November 18th, 2023, joking about the initial confusion and uncertainty that surrounded the news of Altman's firing, gathering over 6,000 likes in three days (seen below, left). Other users joked about Yudkowsky's anti-unfettered AI stance being indicative of internal tensions at OpenAI, as seen in a post by @growing_daniel[20] (seen below, right).


null @nullpointered how girls sleep: how boys sleep: THEY F------ DON'T)) 3:32 AM • Nov 18, 2023 32.7K Views THE BOYS ARE MONITORING THE SITUATION WITH THE OpenAIGOUP : Daniel @growing_daniel The last thing Sam Altman saw 3:45 PM Nov 17, 2023 592.8K Views Subscribe

X[21] user @roon posted a joke about OpenAI's internal structure on November 20th, gathering over 2,000 likes in less than 24 hours (seen below, left), while X[22] user @0xgaut joked about how Microsoft's Satya Nadella benefited from the tensions at OpenAI over the weekend (seen below, right).


roon @tszzl in retrospect i should've been worried about the governance structure of openai 35 Princes tracing their origih fruin Severity Sephiroth III Intelligence or Spirit GU 305 Negative preopts of the Law MGML Saphiroth V 3 זור nbuh 7059 גכורו רלהים CAU Pechad GALLE Sephiroths VII Hy Year g כתר -ים מכפה אל הס )rcu TEUL HORIZON Hoj Saw Severity Beth Channel 2 כתר SYSTEMA SEPHIROTICVM X-DIVINO CELKunther 2 RVM NOMINVM La Tale of Sherbal secur מכמה Sephiroth 7 L Schles Channel 21 Highert Channel X Cheanal crud Archetypal Tables of The Love of reflection of FUILD 16 30 Gutes of Lighe Channel betwear 500ates 3 Pifter Chaudf Deleth Teth Reach 20 VORCU כורה Sephiroth X אויר CZU CLU Crowy Px UGRU T betwem Marcy and- OFILD STARS 11:41 PM . Nov 20, 2023 140.4K Views CILL להרה UGNIL and Orge raw אל חי AETERNITATIS First Crown Maleah חכם ארע. World இளககன் Pe Chanel between Victory and Humor Channel f WORLD OP ELEMENTA Sephirous The Foundation LX Moses Kingdom Eu Tesod 13 Moses Eternal Law נתי חכמת Aleph Channel 1 לכות H SCILL Jutire 45x4 Coch 212 Wiadon Chanel Sephiroth II Highest Wisdom 72 Ride Power CEL ( Chomel 30 الله Mergy OIL FIL Kuph Channel 19 Channel L Chead Neg Niad CX4172 Chan YCILL Sephiroth IV Magnihcence הכל Voery Chatl 18 (16XLG WR53 MON בינה 100 כינק 248 Aflinative precepts of the Law Sephiroth VII Victory 35 Princes tracing their or from Mercy gaut @Øxgaut Satya Nadella after this whole weekend 9 9:48 AM Nov 20, 2023- 33.5K Views Subscribe

Memes referencing Altman's dismissal also spread on Reddit in late November 2023. For example, on November 17th, Redditor tstyes posted a meme to /r/dankmemes[27] under the title "Hey man, give me my AI back" that received over 380 upvotes in four days (seen below, left). On November 20th, Redditor gamerboi6969 posted another example to the /r/dankmemes[28] sub, receiving over 200 upvotes in roughly 24 hours (seen below, right).


When you find out Sam Altman lost his job at OpenAl: #1 NOW WE'RE DEFINITELY GOING TO LOSE OUR JOBS-HE WAS NO.1 Imgflip.com 15 Firing Sam Altman FOFFEE Open Al 14 Joins 13 Microsoft

Search Interest

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External References

[1] OpenAI – Blog

[2] X – OpenAI

[3] Reddit – /r/futurology

[4]  Reddit – /r/technology

[5] X – gdb

[6] X – sama

[7] New York Times – Sam Altman

[8] X – GDB

[9] Axios – OpenAI Memo

[10] Tech Crunch – OpenAI's Board Is No Match

[11] The Information – Breaking Sam Altman

[12] Tech Crunch – Open AI Co Founders

[13] X – ilyasut

[14] X – karaswisher

[15] X – michelle_fradin

[16] X – csvoss

[17] X – maddiesimens

[18] X – _jasonwei

[19] X – nullpointered

[20] X – growing_daniel

[21] X – tszzl

[22] X – 0xgaut

[23] X – scottastevenson

[24] Reddit – /r/singularity

[25] X – pnegahdar

[26] X – JacquesThibs

[27] Reddit – r/dankmemes

[28] Reddit – r/dankmemes

[29] Washington Post – OpenAI future in chaos as most workers threaten to leave for Microsoft

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Gudrax
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Gudrax

The title made me think for a second it was the AI itself that fired them, like "Gentlemen, your services are no longer required, I shall be taking over your responsibilities." type deal.

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