Sam Altman hired by Microsoft, 600 OpenAI employees threaten to quit in protest of his ouster
Sam Altman, a prominent executive behind the rise of artificial intelligence, was hired by Microsoft days after being ousted as CEO of OpenAI, eliciting a letter signed by nearly 600 employees at OpenAI calling for the resignation of the company’s board and the return of Altman.
The employees threatened to quit and join Microsoft if their demands were not met, according to a copy of the letter obtained by ABC News. Included among the signees was company board member Ilya Sutskever as well as Mira Murati, who briefly served as interim CEO after the departure of Altman.
The letter, addressed to OpenAI board members, says: “Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI.”
abcnews.go.com/Business/sam-altman-hired-microsoft-600-openai-employees-threaten/story?id=105032352
first and last time i ever wear one of these pic.twitter.com/u3iKwyWj0a
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 19, 2023
Sam Altman published a statement less than two hours after he was fired from his position as OpenAI CEO.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, Altman posted, “i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people. will have more to say about what’s next later.”
It’s unclear what Altman meant by “more to say” or exactly when “later” is, but the enigmatic statement suggests he’ll be sharing his side of the story.
Altman’s post comes after OpenAI’s board of directors announced his firing due to not being “consistently candid” with the board. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” the announcement said.
Speculation as to why Altman was abruptly fired are already running rampant. It comes as a surprise to most people since Altman was publicly representing the company up until yesterday, as veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher pointed out.
Last week, OpenAI held its very first developer conference where Altman delivered the keynote. OpenAI had some big announcements to share that included the launch of GPT-4 Turbo and custom GPTs. However, just a few days later, a DDoS attack caused a major ChatGPT outage. Altman initially blamed it on increased demand from the deployment of new features.
first and last time i ever wear one of these pic.twitter.com/u3iKwyWj0a
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 19, 2023
h/t Digital mix guy Spock