The Real-Time OpenAI Drama

A fascinating corporate drama is currently unfolding. A drama so juicy that script proposals are likely already being written, because this has never happened in recent history. At least, this did not happen in such a short time, when not months and years, but hours passed between key events.

The OpenAI company, the one that made ChatGPT already and wants to make the real AI, consists of two divisions: commercial and non-profit. The commercial one reports to the non-profit one. The commercial division is needed, by and large, to raise money for the non-profit division research. Sam Altman was the CEO of the commercial division until recently. The non-profit division was controlled by an independent board of directors. OpenAI valuation is around 80-90 billion dollars.

The guy leading research at OpenAI is a dude by the name of Ilya Sutskever. For all intents and purposes, he is the CEO of the non-profit division – reporting to the board of directors, of course.

And then, out of the blue, this very board of directors fires Sam Altman and the reason being given, translated from the corporate jargon into English is: “because he is a scumbag and a liar”.

No one really knows why this happened, but there are two relatively compelling theories. According to the first, OpenAI is close to creating the real AI, and Sam and Ilya did not align on the future vision: Ilya is a supporter of the more cautious approach, while Sam, on the other hand, is the type of guy who likes “testing things in production environment”. According to the second, there is no real AI on the horizon, and Ilya was simply offended that he was so smart, but kicked to the sidelines, and he simply tried to get rid of the unpleasant guy when such an opportunity presented itself. In general, almost all theories agree that this is a confrontation between business (Sam) and research (Ilya).

The current CTO is appointed a temporary CEO of the commercial division. This CTO is a woman, and she is from Albania. Her name is Mira Murati and she has an incredible career (even without her last position). Btw, Albania is just kicking ass – such a small country, but a produced a bunch of outstanding humans. The biggest individual donor to my alma mater (American University in Bulgaria) is Elvin Guri – the guy gave 7 figures to the school – also an Albanian! But I digress, back to the OpenAI story.

The small, but important issue is that Sam, unlike Ilya, is a star, and many people love him. Even the employees – I know, shocker! So, immediately after Sam, Greg Brockman leaves, not the last person in the company, and, unlike Sam, not an executive, but an actual researcher and developer.

It’s funny that Sam and Greg are also members of that very board of directors which fired Sam, but they weren’t invited to that meeting, because there was already a quorum, you know. Instead, Sam and Greg were informed about the termination via Zoom. More precisely, not via Zoom, but via Google Meet.

Another problem is that Ilya spends money, and Sam brings it in. For example, Sam raised 10 billion from Microsoft. And Microsoft learned about his dismissal from the news, which was a little disconcerting. Also from the same news Microsoft learned about the Google Meet detail. They could have used Skype, you know, a Microsoft product. Oh, are you saying Skype is just an atrocious piece of software? Fine, they could have used Microsoft Teams. But again, in principle, no one is formally obliged to report to Microsoft about what’s going on, let alone coordinate such decisions. On the other hand, ten billion here, ten billion there, pretty soon you start talking real money – they could have at least extended the courtesy of calling and giving Microsoft a heads-up.

Since many people love Sam, but, apparently, Ilya is a bit less popular among masses, some (unknown) number of OpenAI employees say something along the lines of “bring Sam back right now, otherwise we’ll quit and you develop your AI yourself all you want”. To make matters worse, Microsoft may be saying something similar. While there is an agreement for 10 billion, the wire for the full amount hasn’t hit the account yet, so Microsoft folks have leverage, too.

The board of directors, according to rumors, hummed and hawed and finally said: OK, my bad, sorry.

Microsoft and employees then say: oh, by the way, once Sam is back, you are dismissed – go pound sand. Obviously, employees and Microsoft cannot force the board of directors to quit, but they can play their cards in such a way that full board resignation is the only reasonable step.

The board of directors is rumored to be saying: Uh... OK.

Sam and Greg draw hearts on X and thank their loyal teams. Then temporary CEO Mira Murati draws hearts for Sam and Greg! That is, even she, it turns out, is on their side!

The board of directors is silent.

It is Friday, 5 pm. Now what?

P.S. Bonus Fun Fact: Do you know the movie “500 Days of Summer”? It’s the one with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is married to Tasha McCauley who sits on the OpenAI board!

Disclaimer: I didn’t write this story. Vladimir Guriev wrote it in Russian. I made a loose translation to English and inserted a few sentences of my own which seemed relevant to me.