OpenAi: Soap Opera in high speed

Lot has been written and said about the OpenAi Soap Opera over the weekend.? To summarize some key highlights :-

1.??????OpenAi Board fires the CEO for misleading the Board by not giving correct information.?

2.??????They appoint an interim ?CEO from inside the company.

3.??????The interim CEO and 500-odd employees write to the board asking the Board to resign and also suggest new names to the Board, an unprecedented and completely reverse pyramid of all corporate governance.

4.??????The interim CEO is fired and a new external CEO is hired.

5.??????The biggest investor in OpenAi Microsoft offers ex-CEO and team jobs by creating a new division for advanced AI.

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I have been seeing all the comments on X and most people think this is a masterstroke by MS and many even say MS has effectively bought OpenAi for Zero Dollars!.


Very few differed with this view and I am one of them.?Being in large corporates for over 4 decades at CXO positions,?I am very concerned about many things.


1.??????I am concerned about the speed of this whole Soap Opera.?One full season of episodes condensed into a 90-second video clip!.??Does all the parties involved have sufficient time to evaluate, especially ethical considerations? ?This gives credibility to the theory that this issue has been on the boil for many months and all the affected parties have been preparing for months.

2.??????Microsoft is a very large public listed company with all the accountability and responsibilities of being a company affecting a large number of retail investors.?Did they do a legal/ethical review of the allegations by the OpenAi Board against the ex-CEO before offering him a very senior corporate job???This is the same Board, the MS investment group trusted to put 13 BN dollars!.?To date no one seems to know what are the specific allegations but given the high-profile personality of the CEO, it is safe to assume that Board has some real tangible written documentation to substantiate their charges.


3.??????What happened to the current AI Research investments of Microsoft???What is this new Advanced AI division??How will it work with the existing earlier AI and product teams??Is any road map done or this was a quick decision to attract a person with a division and later on work out the details??


4.??????Microsoft CEO himself said in an interview, that IP rights and many legal issues need to be sorted out.??It is safe to assume that the IP rights of all ChatGPT is with OpenAi and a legal battle to challenge may happen by the EX-CEO who now has the legal resources of Microsoft.?Too much uncertainty.

5.??????13 Billion is a large investment by Microsoft. What due diligence was done on the complicated not-for-profit, Capped-profit type company holding structure of OpenAi???Usually, any large investor always asks for a few board seats.?Why did MS not have a board seat and caught unaware of the CEO firing decision? ??I am getting more worried purely about corporate governance, risk management, and ethical considerations.

6.??????Offering blanket compensation matching jobs for everyone in OpenAi, completely bypassing MS HR, Legal, and ethics groups is also concerning.

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But I may be labeled as “Old School” and do not understand the dynamics of the new technology world.?However, one trait all Old-school guys have is Saying it as you see it.?That is what I have done. Happy to hear your comments.?

Ranjan Band

CTO for TechMahindra Europe Telecom Business |Fulbright Scholar

1 年

You are absolutely right in your assesment Ravi. But if you look at it from Microsoft’s point of view, they had to secure their product roadmap which is tightly coupled with OpenAI . Recently they started onboarding Lama2 , but it will take some time. Microsoft realised that over dependance on OpenAI is not a right strategy and also knew what is going on inside the company. For Satya, he realised that Microsoft is caughtup between a rock and hard place. Sam Altman & team is a serious talent so roping him will make Microsoft look more in-house and potentially limit the damage . This whole fiasco will surely not help to bring confidence to enterprises who are slowly on the verge of AI adoption !

Yeshwant Satam

ICT professional and consultant

1 年

Ravi you are correct in saying that this issue must have been boiling for some time and all parties involved must have thought through their Plan A and Plan B moves. I think this includes Satya Nadel ticking all their internal governance gates. This means MS may not have actually bypassed HR practices. From MS's perspective, when the pot was boiling over last few months (may be), it was importance that this talent does not go its rivals like Google or Apple. Of course the 500 odd employees giving ultimatum to board must have been the unplanned part. Though unheard of from corporate governance perspective, it may be that these employees know - without them the board can not do much with the company at least for short term. The new external CEO definitely has a tough job at hand - the employees will not have faith in him.

Marcel Urban

Leader in Energy für mehr Digitalisierung und Nachhaltigkeit

1 年

I'm interested in your opinion, Philipp Kloeckner!

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Prasad Joshi

Co-Founder @Cleverex Technology & gritup.io | Tech Entrepreneur | Psychologist | Author of the book - Whispers of Triumph | Enthusiastic about driving purposeful transformations for businesses and individuals

1 年

L Ravichandran sir, As both an AI and human psychology practitioner, I feel this situation serves as a reminder that in the world of advancing technology, human elements such as aspirations, egos, insecurities, and competitiveness remain significant forces. These forces must be managed with care and foresight, especially in decisions with far-reaching implications in the tech industry.

Geetha Murthy

CXO Incubator 2023 | Leadership initiatives | Project Delivery | Agile-Scrum | E-commerce | B2C | D2C | Salesforce | Adobe cloud | Zoho CRM | Business growth initiatives | Competency building

1 年

A genuine attempt to consolidate all facts , as it happened. Thank you for sharing this in such a precise manner L Ravichandran sir

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