News
The Gist
- Leadership reversal at OpenAI. Sam Altman, initially fired by the OpenAI board and then hired by Microsoft, has returned to his position as CEO of OpenAI. This leadership shakeup also sees the return of Greg Brockman, president and cofounder of OpenAI, who had quit following Altman's initial dismissal.
- OpenAI board restructured. The upheaval led to a significant restructuring of the OpenAI board, with most of the previous members stepping down. The new board includes Bret Taylor, Larry Summers and Adam D'Angelo, marking a shift toward a potentially more stable and effective governance structure.
- Continued focus on generative AI development. Despite the dramatic executive changes, the focus on exploring and testing generative AI in marketing and customer experience remains unchanged. This indicates that the technological development and application of generative AI will continue to be a priority for OpenAI and its partners.
Sam Altman, Satya Nadella and the rest of the cast of "Who's Your CEO?" got posting on X again in the wee hours of this morning.
The latest twist in this corporate saga between OpenAI, the OpenAI board, about 700 OpenAI employees, Microsoft and the millions of popcorn-wielding followers of the drama?
Sam Altman has the same job he had five days ago. He's CEO of OpenAI — again.
Altman, fired by the OpenAI board five days ago and hired by Microsoft as CEO of a new AI research unit three days later, is back at OpenAI as CEO. Greg Brockman, president and cofounder of OpenAI who quit after OpenAI's board fired Altman, is back. And likely so are the hundreds of OpenAI employees who threatened to quit and head to Microsoft unless the OpenAI Board resigned. About that OpenAI board — most of them are, in fact, out.
All told in this executive reality show where jobs — not roses — are handed out? Nothing has changed, at least at the top. The top executive five days ago of the makers of ChatGPT, the generative AI app that debuted about a year ago and changed how the world views and uses artificial intelligence, is still the top executive.
OpenAI, Microsoft Executives Get Posting on X — Again
The latest news broke on the platform X in the wee hours of this morning — Wednesday, Nov. 22 — just like it did in the wee hours of Monday morning, Nov. 20 when Microsoft CEO Nadella announced he named Altman as CEO of his new AI group and took in Brockman for the ride, too.
But after the clock struck midnight on the East Coast last night, The Gang got posting again. (Editor's note: Aren't you supposed to not post on social media after midnight? Or was that just feeding Gremlins?).
Here you go:
We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) November 22, 2023
We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.
And here you go:
i love openai, and everything i’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together. when i decided to join msft on sun evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team. with the new board and w satya’s support, i’m…
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 22, 2023
And here you go:
We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance. Sam, Greg, and I have talked and agreed they have a key role to play along with the OAI leadership team in ensuring… https://t.co/djO6Fuz6t9
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) November 22, 2023
And here you go:
we are so back pic.twitter.com/YcKwkqdNs5
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 22, 2023
Heck, even a rap legend took notice. And it's appropriate, because as far as historic corporate sagas go, you definitely "can't touch this" when it comes to OpenAI.
❤️❤️❤️ https://t.co/MRQCPTEeCj
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 22, 2023
Related Article: Microsoft Hires Sam Altman as CEO of Advanced AI Research Team
Generative AI Implementations? Keep Going
It's easy to have a little fun with this game of Executive Musical Chairs. No doubt. And, for sure, business leaders will use much of what happened these past few days as a masterclass use case on how not to handle major corporate matters. How can you not? OpenAI fired Altman, named Mira Murati as interim CEO, then basically several hours later replaced her with Emmett Shear, former CEO of Twitch. And now back to Altman.
Just look at what Josh Bersin, CEO of human capital advisory firm The Josh Bersin Company and global industry analyst, said in an email to CMSWire before Altman was rehired by OpenAI: "By firing Sam without a clear explanation, (the OpenAI Board) created a stampede of employees ready to leave. And in the fast-moving software industry, once the top engineers leave they take all their friends with them, often crippling the business forever; Yahoo is the classic example here. Why did the board make this decision? It’s not clear to me, but it seems too small, highly inexperienced, and clearly driven by idealistic principles."
OpenAI's drama, however, has had no impact on the development of these technologies, yet. Of course, new leadership could have meant new development cycles, pivots in innovation and tweaks to major partnerships like OpenAI has with Microsoft.
Fact is, though, this comes down to a technology, and the outputs that marketing and customer experience leaders can gain from the implementation of generative AI. And as we learned earlier this month, many leaders are in the experimentation and exploratory phase of generative AI implementation.
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That MO to keep exploring and testing with generative AI in marketing and customer experience is still intact, unlike last week's OpenAI Board. The new board, btw, is for now composed of Bret Taylor, former chair of Twitter’s board pre-Elon Musk, Larry Summers, the former U.S. treasury secretary and Adam D’Angelo, the chief executive of Quora. The previous board included D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley of GeoSim Systems, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and Helen Toner, director at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
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