The personnel controversy at OpenAI continued, but the plot did not undergo a reversal as expected by the market. Sam Altman was ultimately "kicked out" by the AI company he founded himself.
According to foreign media reports, OpenAI's board member and chief scientist Ilya Saskville informed employees on Sunday evening local time that Ultraman will not be re appointed as CEO and the company will hire Emmett Shear as CEO. Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also announced that Ultraman will join Microsoft to lead the new AI team.
With the appointment of the new CEO, negotiations between Ultraman and the OpenAI board of directors have broken down. Although the current turmoil seems to have a brief conclusion, where OpenAI, without Ultraman's leadership, will go in the future, will become a mystery that remains to be solved in front of this startup company for a long time.
According to Reuters reports, on Monday, OpenAI publicly resisted, with 490 employees threatening to leave unless the board resigns and reinstates Sam Ultraman and co founder and former president Greg Brockman as CEO. OpenAI currently has approximately 770 employees.
In just two days, the plot twists and turns continuously
Since OpenAI suddenly released a statement last Friday exempting Ultraman's CEO and board of directors, related incidents have continued to escalate. During this period, Ultraman himself made multiple statements on social media, and several senior researchers have resigned. OpenAI investors have also put pressure on the board to allow Ultraman to return to the company. According to foreign media reports, due to multiple pressures, OpenAI discussed returning to the company with Ultraman one day after the dismissal statement was issued.
To facilitate the understanding of the causes and consequences of the incident, the reporter summarized the key timeline of the OpenAI personnel incident as follows:
The OpenAI board of directors issued a statement stating that due to a loss of confidence in Ultraman's ability to continue leading the company, they will be relieved of their CEO and board positions and replaced by the company's Chief Technology Officer, Mira Murati.
Ultraman responded on social media by posting an article stating that he "enjoyed his time on OpenAI", and subsequently posted two status messages expressing dissatisfaction with the board's decision.
Greg Brockman, former chairman and co founder of OpenAI, posted on social media that he would also resign.
Three senior researchers have resigned, including Jakub Pachocki, the company's research director, Aleksander Madry, the team leader responsible for assessing potential risks in artificial intelligence, and Szymon Sidor, a senior researcher who has worked at OpenAI for seven years.
Foreign media reports suggest that major investors such as Microsoft, venture capital firm Thrive Capital, and Tiger Global Fund are putting pressure on the OpenAI board to reinstate Ultraman. The OpenAI board is discussing with Ultraman to return to the company as CEO.
Ultraman posted an article on social media stating that he "really likes OpenAI" the team, causing many company employees to collectively comment and forward, accompanied by a loving expression. According to foreign media reports, many employees have stated that they will resign collectively if Ultraman does not return.
On Sunday local time, Ultraman posted a photo of himself wearing an OpenAI visitor card on a social media platform with an accompanying text: "This is my first and last time wearing this." According to foreign media reports, one condition for Ultraman to return to the company is that "the board of directors (the person who fired him) must leave.
On Sunday evening local time, OpenAI announced that it would not rehire Ultraman and announced a new CEO candidate. Once this decision was announced, dozens of OpenAI employees immediately announced their resignations.
Microsoft CEO Nadella posted that Ultraman and Brockman will join Microsoft to lead the new AI team.
The technical faction ultimately won
The original board of directors of OpenAI was composed of six members, among which Ultraman, Brockman, and Saskville were three co founders of the company, and the other three were external directors. Now it seems that in this stunning "palace fight", Saskerville, along with three other external directors, jointly expelled Ultraman and Brockman, who had a close relationship with Ultraman.
It is worth noting that in an internal meeting after firing Ultraman, Saskerville stated that OpenAI faced security risks and aggressive commercialization strategies, revealing that Ultraman was expelled due to his reckless and excessive commercialization in security. Saskville and other directors have technical backgrounds and have always attached great importance to AI security. In contrast, Ultraman comes from an investor background and has extensive business connections in Silicon Valley. He is better at financing and "making money" for this expensive AI company, but he does not have much understanding of the details of big model technology and has always paid little attention to security and risk issues.
According to media reports, Ultraman may have concealed the security issues of OpenAI products, and a series of products were released too quickly. After the developer conference, multiple major accidents were exposed one after another, demonstrating Ultraman's urgent commercial profit proposition. In the board of directors, other members represented by Saskville have always been highly concerned about AI security, advocating that although progress is slow, the safety of AI for humanity must be ensured.
Susqueville is regarded by the outside world as a 'pure technological idealist'. From the current results, it can be seen that the tech camp ultimately won, and Ultraman, like Steve Jobs, who was criticized for not understanding technical details back then, faced the outcome of being "swept out". This cannot help but make people feel that history is always so strikingly similar.
Murati only served as CEO for two days
With the appointment of the new CEO, Murati may also become one of the shortest serving CEOs in history. According to public information, Murati was born in Albania and obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from Dartmouth College in the United States. After graduation, he worked as a senior researcher at Google and Microsoft. In 2013, Murati joined Tesla and led the design, development, and release of Tesla automotive products such as Model X. He also participated in projects in the aerospace industry.
In 2018, she joined OpenAI and led a team to develop GPT-3, becoming the company's Chief Technology Officer last year. It is worth noting that since the beginning of this year, she has begun to appear widely in the public eye and media coverage, and the public speculates that OpenAI is hoping to turn it into another "star" like Ultraman.
Although Murati was previously appointed as interim CEO, she seems not interested in this "hot potato". According to foreign media reports, she has been trying to re hire Ultraman and Brockman to return to the company to hold certain positions, while the board is trying to hire someone else to replace her as CEO. Just the day before, when Ultraman posted on social media stating that he "really likes the OpenAI team," Murati quickly commented below the post. The comment content is a blue heart, and this comment has also been forwarded and "compared to heart" by Brockman.
In fact, Ultraman, Brockman, Saskville, and Murati have always been regarded as the four giants of OpenAI. This series of "heart to heart" interactions makes the relationship between the four people appear very complicated and confusing to the outside world. Where Murati will go in the future seems to have become a mystery.
What is the background of the new CEO Hill?
The new CEO invited by OpenAI this time is former CEO of Twitch, Emit Hill.
According to public information, Hill obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Yale University in 2005 and subsequently co founded the live streaming platform Justin.tv with three other members. Initially, Justin.tv became well-known to American audiences by broadcasting the life of American technology entrepreneur Justin Kan 24/7. Later, it was renamed Twitch and shifted to the live streaming business of popular games. In 2014, it was acquired by Amazon for $970 million. It is reported that until March this year, Hill had been the CEO of Twitch, but he left due to criticism from users for adjusting the proportion of live streamers.
In addition to serving as the CEO of Twitch, Hill is also one of the part-time partners of Y Combinator, a well-known technology startup in the United States, and Y Combinator was also one of Twitch's early investors. It is worth noting that Ultraman served as the President of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, so the two had a period of intersection and are likely not unfamiliar.
According to media reports, during Ultraman's tenure as the president of Y Combinator, the board of directors of Y Combinator was deeply dissatisfied with his focus on OpenAI and considered dismissing Ultraman.
However, although Hill has a background in computer science, he himself does not have much knowledge of technology and has no previous work experience in the field of artificial intelligence. Moreover, Hill does not seem to be a technological optimist like Ultraman, as his previous attitude towards big models on social media platforms was pessimistic and even sarcastic. Therefore, after learning that Hill will take over as the new CEO, there are voices of concern about the future of OpenAI from the outside world.
Ultraman will join Microsoft to lead a new AI team
And the most core figure in this storm, Ultraman, also has his own destination: he will join Microsoft's embrace and join Microsoft's new advanced artificial intelligence research team.
After the OpenAI board announced that Ultraman was ultimately eliminated, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted on social media, stating that Microsoft remains committed to its partnership with OpenAI and remains confident in its product roadmap, will continue to promote innovation, continue to support its customers and partners, and looks forward to learning about and working with the new team led by Hill.
Meanwhile, Nadella announced that Ultraman and Brockman will both join Microsoft to lead a new artificial intelligence research team and will quickly take action to provide them with the necessary resources. Subsequently, Ultraman forwarded Nadella's blog post and commented, "The mission continues
In fact, as early as OpenAI fired Ultraman and Brockman, many people expressed that OpenAI would welcome its strongest competitor in the future - the newly formed AI company by Ultraman and Brockman. Previously, foreign media reported that if Ultraman cannot return to OpenAI, he is likely to establish a new company and hire employees who resigned from OpenAI due to him.
Microsoft, as the most important investor in OpenAI, did not receive any prior notice regarding the dismissal of Ultraman. In the past two days, Microsoft has been coordinating and mediating between Ultraman and the board of directors, and Microsoft is eager to complete the adjustment work before the stock market opens on Monday.
With Microsoft taking over Ultraman, many netizens have mocked him, and Microsoft has ultimately become the biggest winner in this storm.