In a dramatic turn of events late Friday, ex-Y Combinator president Sam Altman was fired as CEO of AI startup OpenAI, the company behind viral AI hits like ChatGPT, GPT-4, and DALL-E 3, by OpenAI’s board of directors. Then, the company’s longtime president and co-founder, Greg Brockman, resigned — as did three senior OpenAI researchers. And the fallout continues.
It’s a fast-moving situation that we’re still trying to get to the bottom of. No doubt more will become clear as time goes on. To make it easier to follow all that’s happened in the meantime, though, we’ve put together a timeline; we’ll do our best to keep it current.
Timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI January 5 The identity of OpenAI’s board observer has been revealed. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft has chosen Dee Templeton, VP for tech and research partnerships and operations and an advisor to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, as its non-voting board observer. Bloomberg says that Templeton has already begun attending board meetings; The Information previously reported that Templeton was being considered for the role.
November 29 Microsoft gains a board observer Microsoft will gain representation on the new initial board of directors in the form of a non-voting observer, OpenAI announced. It wasn’t immediately clear who this observer might be only that they won’t have an official vote in board business.
November 21 Sam Altman, OpenAI reach agreement on return as CEO and ‘initial’ new board In a sudden late announcement, OpenAI revealed that it and Altman “have reached an agreement in principle” for him to return as the company’s CEO. In addition to Altman’s return, its new “initial” board will include former Salesforce chief executive Bret Taylor, former US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, and Quora founder Adam D’Angelo.
Altman also posted about the new deal, giving some insight into the roller coaster that we’ve all been riding since his firing was revealed Friday. In his words, his decision to join Microsoft on Sunday “was the best path for me and the team.” Since then, the new board’s composition and Microsoft’s support appear to have been enough to bring him back to the AI company he co-founded.
Altman and board in talks OpenAI’s board of directors is reportedly in talks with Sam Altman, ex-Y Combinator president and an OpenAI co-founder, to return to OpenAI as CEO as soon as this week. That’s according to Bloomberg, which in a brief — citing sources close to the matter — said that discussions are happening between Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, one current member of the OpenAI board, and Altman — and possibly other board members as well.
Board tensions boil over The New York Times reports that, before his ousting, Sam Altman made a move to push out board member Helen Toner because he thought a paper she had co-written was overly critical of OpenAI. That, among other issues, led to OpenAI’s current predicament. Speaking of, The Times indicates that negotiations to hire Altman back continue — but that one major sticking point remaining is “guardrails” meant to improve Altman’s communication with the board.
November 20 Altman joins Microsoft Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and colleagues announce that they’ll join Microsoft to lead a new AI research team. Nadella leaves the door open to other OpenAI staffers, saying that they’ll be given the resources they need should they choose to join.
Employees threaten to resign Nearly 500 of OpenAI’s roughly 770 employees — including, remarkably, Sutskever publish a letter saying that they might quit unless the startup’s board resigns and reappoints the ousted Altman. Later Monday, that number climbed to over 650.
Altman and Brockman considering return As reported by The Verge, Altman’s move to Microsoft isn’t a done deal and both Altman and Brockman are still open to returning to OpenAI. That is, if the remaining board members who initially fired him step aside.
OpenAI board considers merger OpenAI’s board of directors approached Dario Amodei, the co-founder and CEO of rival large-language model developer Anthropic, about a potential merger of the two companies, The Information reports. The approach was part of an effort by OpenAI to persuade Amodei to replace Altman as CEO but Amodei quickly turned down the CEO offer.
November 19 Altman to meet at OpenAI HQ According to The Information, Altman is expected to meet at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters as executives at OpenAI push to have him reinstated as CEO. Brockman was invited to join — but it’s unclear whether he’ll take execs up on that invitation.
Board negotiations hit a snag Bloomberg reports that Lightcap and Murati, among others, are pushing the board to reinstate Altman