Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is joining Microsoft following his sudden dismissal from the artificial intelligence tech company last week.
“We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” Mr. Nadella stated.
“We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success,” he added.
OpenAI has received more than $10 billion from Microsoft since the company switched to a for-profit model in 2018.
“We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them,” Mr. Nadella stated.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Nov. 20, Mr. Shear described the offer to join OpenAI as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“I took this job because I believe that OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence.
Shear Comments on Altman’s Removal
Mr. Shear unveiled his “three point plan” for the next 30 days, which includes reforming the management and leadership team at OpenAI.The plan also includes hiring an independent investigator to look into the entire process and speaking with OpenAI’s employees, investors, and customers.
“Depending on the results everything we learn from these, I will drive changes in the organization — up to and including pushing strongly for significant governance changes if necessary. I will be rolling these out as they become clear over the 30 day period,” he said.
Mr. Shear also stated that OpenAI’s decision to remove Mr. Altman was not owing to “any specific disagreement on safety.”
“Before I took the job, I checked on the reasoning behind the change. The board did *not* remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that,” he stated.
Mr. Shear co-founded live streaming platform Justin.tv, which became Twitch in 2011 and quickly gained traction in the gaming community. Twitch was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for just under $1 billion. He stepped down as Twitch CEO earlier this year.
Mr. Altman has started several startups, including startup accelerator Y Combinator and social networking company Loopt. He, together with others, started OpenAI as a nonprofit lab in 2015.
Just a week before his removal, at OpenAI’s inaugural developer conference, Mr. Altman said ChatGPT had more than 100 million weekly users and 2 million developers.
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, the chatbot swiftly became a global phenomenon, attracting hundreds of millions of users. Users were impressed by ChatGPT’s ability to answer questions and engage with them across a wide array of topics.
Mr. Altman became regarded as a prominent figure in the generative AI industry. The move also drove tech giants such as Google and Facebook to jump into generative AI.
As recently as Nov. 16, Mr. Altman showed no signs of concern at two public events. He joined colleagues in a panel on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in San Francisco.
OpenAI said its board of directors “consists of OpenAI 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.”
