OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks back on why and how he was fired three times, including at OpenAI.
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OpenAI's Sam Altman was suddenly asked to resign from OpenAI's board of directors in November 2023, and announced his retirement from the CEO position and from OpenAI. After that, Mr. Altman temporarily worked at Microsoft, and then returned to the position of CEO of OpenAI, which became a hot topic. The Wall Street Journal, an American economic newspaper, mentions that Mr. Altman has been forced to resign three times, including from OpenAI, and explains the circumstances.
Sam Altman's Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-protected-by-silicon-valley-friends-f3efcf68
OpenAI is not the first company where Altman has been fired. Mr. Altman has been forced to resign from top leadership at three organizations, including OpenAI.
Prior to founding OpenAI, Mr. Altman became co-founder and CEO of Loopt in 2005, which develops apps related to location-based services for smartphones. At the time, Altman was a sophomore at Stanford University, majoring in computer science.
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'Every cell phone will have GPS,' Altman said. 'We invite anyone interested to join us in finding the best way to combine this technology.' I started developing an app that would help people learn about things, dropped out of Stanford University, and launched Loopt. Y Combinator, a seed accelerator that invests in Silicon Valley startups, invested in the launch of Loopt.
However, Mr. Altman was twice submitted to the Board of Directors by Loopt's senior employees with a proposal to dismiss him as the CEO for ``acting in a deceptive and disorderly manner.'' According to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Altman was pursuing a side project separate from Loopt's main business, and complaints were gathered that he had diverted Loopt's technology to the development of a dating app for gays. However, at this time, the board of directors retained Mr. Altman until Loopt was sold to a bank in 2012.
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'When Altman thinks something is true, it becomes reality in his head,' said Marc Jacobstein, Loopt's former chief operating officer. is an extraordinary talent. It may or may not lead to business expansion, and it may make people uncomfortable.' According to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Altman has no recollection of any complaints he received from employees at Loopt.
Mr. Altman will then become CEO of Y Combinator. Until then, Y Combinator was a seed funding company launched by founder Paul Graham with a few friends. Mr. Altman succeeded in significantly expanding Y Combinator's investment portfolio, supporting Dropbox, Airbnb, Reddit, Docker, etc. As a result, Y Combinator will grow into a major investment company.
However, in the meantime, Mr. Altman founded a nonprofit research institute called YC Research and started a semi-independent research venture from Y Combinator. This raised suspicions that Mr. Altman was straying too far from running Y Combinaotr's core business.
by TechCrunch
In 2015, Elon Musk, known as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Google co-founder Larry Page parted ways over a discussion about AI, and Google focused on investing in the AI company DeepMind. Now it looks like this. In response, Musk collaborated with Sam Altman and others to establish OpenAI in December 2015. The details of how OpenAI was established are summarized in the article below.
About the history of the establishment of DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic, until the people who were most afraid of the risks of AI decided that they should be at the top and built it - GIGAZINE
And in 2019, Y Combinator announced the resignation of its CEO because he had 'prioritized his personal projects, including OpenAI, over Y Combinator's work.'
Sam Altman has been fired before OpenAI - GIGAZINE
At this time, in order to ensure a smooth retirement, Mr. Altman proposed moving from representative director to chairman, and announced his transition to the chairman position in advance on Y Combinator's official blog. However, relations with Y Combinaotr management could not be repaired and the blog post was deleted.
Then, on November 17, 2023, OpenAI announced the resignation and retirement of Sam Altman. It is reported that this resignation was due to a resolution of OpenAI's board of directors at the time to dismiss Mr. Altman.
Sam Altman of AI development company OpenAI retires, CTO Mira Murati becomes interim CEO - GIGAZINE
After Altman was fired, he emailed Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky, calling it 'very difficult' for him to be fired as CEO of OpenAI and to be leaving OpenAI. is. A while later, CEO Chesky received an email from Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, OpenAI's largest business partner, stating that ``Mr. Altman is receiving support from Silicon Valley.''
CEO Chesky had a video call with Mr. Altman and Greg Brockman, who resigned as president and left OpenAI at the same time, and asked Mr. Altman why this happened. 'It may have been the result of an argument with Helen Toner and Ilya Satskyvar.' After that, CEO Chesky discussed Altman's future with influential figures in Silicon Valley, including angel investor Ron Conway, and also negotiated with OpenAI's board of directors. The Wall Street Journal explains that CEO Cesky actively supported Altman because when he was Y Combinator's representative director, he provided support and advice to CEO Cesky to get Airbnb off the ground. Masu.
According to The Wall Street Journal, after Altman was fired from OpenAI, he received support from Sun Microsystems co-founder and OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla, Conway, and Satya Nadella. He said. Two days after his dismissal, Microsoft announced that Sam Altman would be temporarily hired as an employee until he returns to OpenAI.
Microsoft announces the joining of Sam Altman and other former OpenAI members - GIGAZINE
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