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After three months of external investigation carried out by the law firm Wilmerhale, OpenAI, a company known for having created the Chat GPT, announced the return of Sam altman e Greg Brockman, two of its co-founders, to its board of directors. 2o726w
“I'm glad it's all over. It's disheartening to see some people with an agenda trying to use leaks in the press to harm the company, harm the mission.”
Sam Altman, CEO and member of the board of directors of OpenAI, at a press conference
During the period, WilmerHale reviewed more than 30 documents, evaluated corporate actions and conducted dozens of interviews with employees, relevant witnesses and former OpenAI consultants and board .
“We unanimously conclude that Sam (Altman) and Greg (Brockman) are the right leaders for OpenAI”
Bret Taylor, chairman of the board of directors at OpenAI, in an official company statement
ing the case 213w39
In November 2023, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and OpenAI went through a very busy and chaotic period.
On November 17th, a Friday, Sam Altman was fired by the board of directors of his company. CEO position. The exact reasons were not disclosed, but there is speculation that there was internal friction between Altman and a colleague, and the board noted, at the time of his dismissal, that the then-CEO had not been consistently candid in his communications. Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, resigned in protest.
Five days of chaos then followed, with three different chief executives during the period. After Sam Altman's resignation, Mira Murati, former executive director of OpenAI took over as interim head. Over the weekend, several investors — including Microsoft, which alone invested US$13 billion in the creator of ChatGPT and Chat GPT Enterprise — pressured OpenAI's board of directors to backtrack and reinstate Altman as CEO, but to no avail.
After 48 hours of negotiations, on Sunday night (November 19), OpenAI said it would stand by its decision to fire Altman and announced a new interim boss, Emmett Shear, former CEO and co-founder of Twitch. In contrast, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, announced the same night that he would hire Sam Altman and Greg Brockman as leaders of a team focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) research.
The following day, Monday (20), almost all OpenAI employees (at the time there were almost 800 employees) delivered a petition saying that they would leave the company and go, together with Altman and Brockman, to work for Microsoft. Their conditions were clear: they called for Altman's return and the resignation of all then- of OpenAI's board of directors.
On Tuesday night (21), the creator of Chat GPT announced the return of Sam Altman as CEO and Greg Brockman as president. Despite being reinstated to the company, the two co-founders did not return to OpenAI's board of directors at the time.
Lack of justifications for dismissal z552s
Just over a month later, on December 8, 2023, the Special Committee of the OpenAI board of directors hired the company WilmerHale for an investigation and review of the events that culminated in Altman's dismissal and Brockman's resignation.
During this period, the company carried out an intense analysis of various documents and corporate actions, in addition to interviewing several employees and former board , discovering that the decision by the former Open AI board did not arise from concerns related to the company's finances or statements to investors, customers or partners, nor about the safety of the product or its pace of development, but rather due to a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust in Altman.
“The review concluded that there was a significant breach of trust between the previous board and Sam (Altman) and Greg (Brockman). And it similarly concluded that the board acted in good faith, that the board believed at the time that the actions would mitigate some of the challenges it perceived and did not anticipate some of the instability.”
Bret Taylor, chairman of the board of directors of OpenAI, at a press conference
Ultimately, WilmerHale concluded—and the Special Committee agreed—that despite existing reasons, Sam Altman's conduct did not necessitate his removal from the company.
Return to the council t2g9
With the investigations completed, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman are back not only to their old positions, which they have held since the end of November 2023, but also to the current OpenAI board of directors.
In addition to the return of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI took the opportunity to also announce the addition of three new , all women, to its board of directors:
- Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and current member of the Pfizer Board of Directors and the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology;
- Nicole Seligman, former Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel of Sony and President of Sony Entertainment and current member of the Board of Directors of Paramount Global, Meira GTx and Intuitive Machines, Inc;
- Fiji Simo, CEO and president of Instacart and member of the board of directors at Shopify.
“As Chairman of the Board, I am excited to welcome Sue, Nicole and Fidji to the OpenAI board of directors. His experience and leadership will enable the Board to oversee OpenAI's growth and ensure we continue OpenAI's mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”
Bret Taylor, chairman of the board of directors at OpenAI, in an official company statement
In addition to current board president Bret Taylor and the three new additions, the current board also includes:
- Lawrence summers, former Treasury secretary, Harvard professor and veteran of the Clinton and Obama istrations;
- Adam D'Angelo, CEO of Quora (Despite his role in Altman's firing, D'Angelo led negotiations to bring him back).
With the three new and the return of executives, OpenAI's new board of directors stated that its main focus is to improve governance procedures to better fulfill the company's mission. Furthermore, the group announced the adoption of some improvements to the company's governance, such as:
- The adoption of a new set of corporate governance guidelines;
- Strengthening OpenAI's Conflict of Interest Policy;
- The creation of a reporting hotline so that all OpenAI employees and contractors can make anonymous reports;
- The creation of additional committees, including a Mission and Strategy committee focused on implementing and advancing OpenAI's core mission.
See also other features
Sources: OpenAI, Wired, The Guardian
reviewed by Glaucon Vital in 11 / 3 / 24.
