INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
OpenAI will bring back Sam Altman and overhaul its board to bring on new directors including Larry Summers, a stunning reversal in a drama
chaired by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce.com Inc
and director at Twitter before it was acquired by Elon Musk.Other directors include Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary under
co-founder after nearly all of its employees threatened to quit over his surprise ouster
develop and monetize artificial intelligence, had been in negotiations with the company to return
Those talks reached an impasse on Sunday in part over pressure from Altman and others for existing board members to resign, according to
Microsoft Corp, said it would hire Altman to head up a new in-house AI team.Within hours, most of OpenAI's 770 employees signed a letter to
the board saying they might quit and join Microsoft unless all board directors resigned and Altman was reinstated
Among the many who signed the letter was Murati, who had been named interim CEO on Friday, and Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder and
actions," Sutskever wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday
and also Skillsoft Corp.The quick reversal could appease investors and reduce the threat of employees fleeing
But it also raises questions about the path ahead for the ChatGPT maker and other AI startups, which have tried to balance developing
artificial intelligence responsibly alongside the need to raise vast amounts of capital from investors to support the expensive computing
infrastructure required to build these tools.Founded in 2015, OpenAI was initially established as a nonprofit aimed at advancing AI in a way
that would benefit humanity and not be dictated by financial gain
The software giant began working with investors including Thrive Capital and Tiger Global Management to bring him back, according to people
familiar with the matter who asked to remain anonymous discussing private information
When that effort failed, Microsoft agreed to hire Altman and others from OpenAI.OpenAI also faced new uncertainty over plans to let
employees sell their shares at an $86 billion valuation
Thrive, which was expected to lead a tender offer for employee stock, had not yet wired the money as of Saturday and told OpenAI that
figure, Altman, 38, emerged as the face of a new era of artificial intelligence technology, thanks to the viral success of ChatGPT
President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
On Thursday, he appeared on a panel at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, attended by other executives and world leaders, to
discuss the future of AI and its risks.Behind the scenes, however, Altman clashed with members of his board, especially Sutskever, over how
quickly to develop generative AI, how to commercialize products and the steps needed to lessen their potential harms to the public, people
with knowledge of the matter have said
He has been looking to raise tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to create an AI chip startup to compete
with processors made by Nvidia Corp., according to a person with knowledge of the investment proposal
Altman was courting SoftBank Group Corp
chairman Masayoshi Son for a multibillion-dollar investment in a new business to make AI-oriented hardware in partnership with former Apple
designer Jony Ive.Altman's side ventures added complexity to an already strained relationship with the board.In a statement Friday, OpenAI
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was fired as CEO in 1985 only to return more than a decade later
Twitter co-founder Dorsey was pushed out in 2008 and came back as CEO seven years later.WatchChatGPT's Sam Altman on AI, regulation: If this
technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong
