Who is Sam Altman?
Altman, an entrepreneur and investor, was born in Chicago in 1985 and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He was CEO of OpenAi from 2019 until his recent departure. Before that he was president of startup accelerator company Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, having been a partner there since 2011.
Why was Sam Altman fired?
On 17 November, OpenAI’s board of directors unexpectedly fired the company’s CEO Sam Altman. The board announced that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities”. This led to a wave of rumours about the reason for the decision.
Within hours, Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, was removed from the board and later resigned from his position at the company. Three senior researchers – Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Madry and Szymon Sidor – also quit.
OpenAI has hired Sam Altman replacement, Emmett Shear
Who is Emmett Shear?
Emmett Shear is a big name in the tech world. Born in 1983 and raised in Seattle, he founded a live video platform, Justin.tv, that eventually became the video service Twitch, which was purchased by Amazon in 2014 for close to $1 billion. Shear served as CEO of that company until March when he resigned to spend more time with his newborn son.
What’s his new role?
Shear is now heading OpenAI, the world’s pre-eminent artificial intelligence development organization. It’s the company behind ChatGPT, the popular generative AI chatbot that is (depending on whom you ask) either an amusing parlour trick, a boon to productivity, or the harbinger of the end of the human race.
Microsoft hires Sam Altman after 3 days
Microsoft has hired Sam Altman, to lead a new unit focused on advancing artificial intelligence technology. Despite being an early investor in OpenAI, Microsoft’s decision to create an in-house AI research team highlights a rift in the AI community between those advocating caution and those pushing for rapid progress.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote on twitter that Microsoft was “extremely excited” that Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, along with other managers from the AI company, would join Microsoft to lead a “new advanced AI research team.
Nadella wrote: “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them. And 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. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.
“I’m super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation. We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I’m looking forward to having you do the same.”
Is Sam Altman going back to OpenAI?
Sam Altman returns to OpenAI
The craziest 72 hours in tech history are over: Sam Altman is back to OpenAI as CEO Greg Brockman and 750 out of 770 OpenAI employees who threatened to quit if Altman didn’t return will join Sam to continue building the leading AI company. OpenAI now has a new board as well.