Over 700 of OpenAI’s 770 employees have said they’ll follow Sam Altman to Microsoft if he’s not reinstated as CEO.
Altman was ousted as OpenAI CEO last Friday by its board, while his fellow Co-founder Greg Brockman was removed from the board and then stepped down from his role as President. Following an outraged response from OpenAI investors and workers, Altman and the board discussed a potential return over the weekend before discussions broke down. News broke that Microsoft had hired Altman and Brockman to manage an advanced AI research team overnight on Sunday.
Monday introduced several new turns of events to the situation.
Over the weekend, OpenAI employees posted heart emojis over social media to signal that they would leave OpenAI to follow Sam Altman wherever he went — which looked set to be Microsoft on Monday morning, but that hasn’t yet been 100 percent confirmed (more on that later).
In a letter to OpenAI’s board that was seen by journalist Kara Swisher — and signed by 505 employees at the time — it was expressed that most OpenAI workers would leave if the board wouldn’t reinstate Altman and Brockman and then step down themselves. Those workers who signed the letter accused OpenAI’s board of compromising their mission and company.
The letter read:
Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI. 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 OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.”
It also outlined that Microsoft had promised them jobs if they were to leave: “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.” OpenAI employees expressed that Microsoft was treating this development effectively as significant acquisition by informing them there were available positions to join Altman at the Seattle-based tech giant.
Breaking: 505 of 700 employees @OpenAI tell the board to resign. pic.twitter.com/M4D0RX3Q7a
— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) November 20, 2023
Swisher added that more names were still being added to the list by Monday evening, which has now risen to over 700, but that the letter was written over the weekend — meaning it was drafted and signed by most of its signatories before the board decided to stay and name former Twitch boss Emmett Shear as its new interim CEO on Sunday night.
Despite the severity of the letter’s implications for OpenAI and whether or not it’s even too late for the board to rectify the situation even if they wanted to, the board stated in an internal memo that it was in “intense discussions” to unite the company on Monday.
As reported by Bloomberg, OpenAI’s Vice President of Global Affairs, Anna Makanju, expressed the sentiment and said that the board were in contact with Altman about a viable return but didn’t articulate how advanced those discussions were.
At the time of publication, Shear has been unable to acquire written confirmation of the board’s detailed reasoning for firing Altman. OpenAI’s investors have also not been sent this relevant documentation. Shear said in an employee memo on Sunday night that his top priority would be to “hire an independent investigator to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report”.
What Else Happened With OpenAI on Monday?
A further compelling development is that Altman and Brockman aren’t certain to end up at Microsoft. Both are open to returning to OpenAI if their initial demands of every board member acquiescing to their returns before resigning themselves are fulfilled.
Altman posted on X, “We are going to work together some way or other”, which has been inferred to mean he is still open to returning to OpenAI, despite a Microsoft statement overnight on Sunday saying that Microsoft had hired him and Brockman to oversee an advanced AI research team — and even to keep his CEO title within the Microsoft subsidiary.
we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before.
we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited.
one team, one mission.
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 20, 2023
The Verge reported its sources described Microsoft’s hiring announcement as a “holding pattern”, given the company needed a strong answer to the crisis before the stock market opened on Monday.
In yet another plot twist for the ages, Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s Board Director who reportedly led the initial plan to oust Altman and Brockman, had added his name to the list of letter resignations. Sutskever wrote on X: “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.”
Sutskever’s 180-degree turn means that only two more board members need to change their minds to catalyse an Altman return. The remaining board members who stand against Altman’s return are Helen Toner, the Director of Strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, and former GeoSim Systems CEO Tasha McCauley.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also said in a Bloomberg TV interview that he would support Sam Altman “wherever he ended up”, virtually confirming that his Microsoft move wasn’t yet confirmed and that he would also support Altman’s reinstatement, even if it meant Microsoft missing out on bringing in an AI visionary in-house. Microsoft, who has invested $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019, would benefit regardless of how this story resolves, Nadella said.
CNBC also asked Nadella whether Microsoft should have a seat on OpenAI’s board, to which he replied: “It’s clear something has to change around the governance — we will have a good dialogue with their board on that, and walk through that as that evolves.”
OpenAI’s board had also been busy in the background. The Information reported that OpenAI’s board had approached Dario Amodei, the CEO and Co-founder of large language model (LLM) developer (and OpenAI rival) Anthropic, about a potential merger. The move came after OpenAI’s board fired Altman on Friday, and Amodei was also reportedly offered the CEO role to sweeten the merger deal.
The Information’s sources said it was unclear how seriously the merger proposal was taken but that Amodei refused because of his current position at Anthropic.
This year, Anthropic has received significant investments from Microsoft competitors Zoom, Amazon and Google.
