Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, announced that OpenAI’s co-founders Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and colleagues will be joining Microsoft in the aftermath of Sam Altman’s ouster from the CEO position.
After the dismissal of Sam Altman on Friday last week and OpenAI CTO, Mira Murati taking over, several senior staffers including former Chairman and President Greg Brockman, Director of Research Jakub Pachocki, Head of Preparedness Aleksander Madry and Senior Researcher Szymon Sidor tendered their resignations in protest. Numerous additional OpenAI staffers quit in solidarity.
In light of this development, sources close to Altman say that the board itself, in a stunning reversal, “agreed in principle” to resign while reinstating him to his former position. This was supposed to happen on Sunday but it did not.
Some hours later, co-founder and board director Ilya Sutskever announced that Sam Altman won’t return as CEO of OpenAI, despite efforts by the company’s executives to bring him back. He also announced that Emmett Shear, co-founder of Amazon-owned video streaming site Twitch, will take over as interim CEO.
Thereafter Satya Nadella, who has been at the centre of the discussion between Sam Altman and the OpenAI board, announced Sam Altman next steps.
“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,” said Nadella.
Microsoft has invested over $10 billion in OpenAI.
Sam Altman responded to the Twitter post saying, “the mission continues”.
Nadella responds, “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.”
