In an exclusive gathering with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and a group of developers, discussions revolved around OpenAI’s APIs, product strategies, and the societal impact of artificial intelligence (AI). Altman provided valuable insights into the company’s plans, shedding light on key takeaways from the conversation.

https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1727206187077370115

@OpenAI

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.

We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.

Is it Sam Altman or OpenAI?

If Altman, then is he doing like what Musks says he will do – and do new AI-investments outside of the company he is CEO at, to own more of it?

What kind of company owners allows their CEO:s to do such things?

Isn't Sam Altman on their board? I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who pushed for these API changes, to restrict others from building a competitor to OpenAI.

Sam Altman is not a founder (of OpenAI).

Which means he probably doesn’t have voting shares to exert company control.

Sam (+ Elon) were though initial board members.

> Sam Altman has been an objectively successful leader of OpenAI.

In what way, exactly? ChatGPT would have been built regardless of whether he was there or not. It's not like he knows how to put a transformer pipeline together. The success of OpenAI's product rests on its scientists and engineers, not the CEO, and certainly not a non-technical one like Mr. Altman.

Microsoft has 340x the number of employees as OpenAI.

Sam Altman was never a consideration as CEO of the whole company.

But instead CEO or VP of a seperate entity similar to how Github operates for which Sam would be more than suitable. And once again Sam just built a $100b business. That requires a bit more skill than people give him credit for.

Information just reported this:

Breaking: Sam Altman Will Not Return as CEO of OpenAI

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/breaking-sam-altman-...

There's a lot of speculation that Sam Altman will return to OpenAI. There are publicly disgruntled employees and high level employees resigning. The executives of the company are reportedly meeting with the board about reinstating Sam Altman. I definitely don't think that's ideal for the board.

Sam Altman has inside information on OpenAI's current and future hardware needs. Sam Altman as CEO, was in a position to direct OpenAI's current and future hardware purchases.

How can he separate those concerns from having his own hardware initiative put together precisely to serve OpenAI and its competitors hardware needs?

Without an agreement with the OpenAI board on how these conflicts of trade secret information and executive power can be settled (Significant shares in the new company for OpenAI?) no competent board would put up with this.

This situation smacks of the ethically questionable transition to a closed/profit organization, after receiving initial funding based on their being an open/non-profit organization. (Apparently the original funders didn't retain any veto power over such a transition, to the regret of at least one significant donor.)

Interesting take considering Sam Altman has no equity in OpenAI and doesn't receive a salary and he's the one up there saying this.

If we are to believe media reports. But why do customers and employees care that much about having Sam Altman as CEO? Sam was just at the right place at the right time. He is no doubt competent but not some kind of irreplaceable AI or management prodigy. OpenAI's true strength lies in its AI research team and their groundbreaking models. The C-suite is just a sideshow.

Me:

Why was Sam Altman fired from OpenAI?

ChatGPT 3.5:

There isn't any information available indicating that Sam Altman was fired from OpenAI. As of my last update in January 2022, Sam Altman was still involved with OpenAI, serving as the CEO. However, leadership changes can occur, and it's always a good idea to check recent news sources for the most current information.

Me: (drat)

Why do people think it has to be some single big incident? Sam Altman has been the head of OpenAI for many years now, while the company has been in intense public spotlight only in the recent few months. The dynamic today is very different from 2019 or whenever he was hired. He also doesn't have any voting shares, which means he is entirely at the mercy of the board. It's entirely possible that they simply don't like the direction he has been taking the company in, and today was more of some minor straw that broke the camel's back situation.

If I understood correctly Altman was CEO of the for-profit OpenAI, not the non-profit. The structure is pretty complicated: https://openai.com/our-structure

Given OpenAI is a 501c and Sam Altman has a history in the VC world, it seems more plausible to me that Altman was on the pro-"make it a normal business" side.

OpenAI firing Sam Altman.

The announcement: https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transiti...

The discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611

No, Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI because he built it. He's incredibly smart and driven, the only wealthy person I've worked with who I think is, at his core, a good person who cares.

I don't know the backstory, but they've gone their separate ways since this podcast. Musk left OpenAI after a failed takeover attempt:

> Musk told fellow cofounder Sam Altman in early 2018 that he thought OpenAI, which has since created ChatGPT, was lagging behind Google, people familiar with the matter told Semafor. Musk offered to take charge of OpenAI to lead it himself, but when Altman and other co-founders said no, Musk stepped down from the board and backed out of a huge donation, per Semafor.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-reportedly-tried-l...

Fortunately Sam Altman, not Musk is running point at OpenAI. imho Sam is the perfect person for the job. If anyone can manage the risks of something like AGI while also optimizing for the benefits, it’s Sam.