How do you view the news of OpenAI founders Altman and Brockman joining Microsoft and OpenAIs board considering hiring a new CEO?

OpenAI Employees Demand Resignation of the Board of Directors

【ChatGPT Rates OpenAI Drama 7.3】- On Friday, November 17 (US time), OpenAI announced the firing of CEO Sam Altman. During the subsequent all-hands meeting, an employee asked OpenAI’s Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever if this was a coup, to which he replied, “You could say that, but I think it’s just the board of directors doing their duty.”

- On Saturday, November 18, OpenAI CTO and interim CEO Mira Murati posted a statement saying that they will bring Altman back. Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon internally sent a memo expressing the company’s confidence in this decision.

- On Sunday, November 19, Altman went to negotiate with the OpenAI board and took a selfie with an OpenAI visitor badge.

- Sunday evening, Sutskever informed the employees that Altman will not be returning… the board believed that removing Altman was the only way to advance and defend OpenAI’s mission.

- During the same meeting, OpenAI appointed a new interim CEO, Emmett Shear. Shear is Altman’s fellow classmate from the YC startup camp, and later co-founded Twitch. In the same year, Shear and Altman became partners at YC.

- Late Sunday night, Microsoft announced that Altman and former OpenAI President Brockman would join to lead a new AI research team.

- In the early morning of Monday, November 20, Sutskever tweeted, “I deeply regret my actions in participating in the board. I never meant to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together. I will do everything in my power to help the company heal.” Altman liked his tweet with three heart emojis.

- 505 out of OpenAI’s 700 employees (including Murati and Sutskever) have demanded that the board members resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman’s positions, or else they might join Microsoft’s subsidiary with Altman.

ChatGPT rates this script 7.3/10 so far, stating, “This story contains many gripping elements such as power struggles, internal conflicts, sudden upheavals, betrayal of friends and family, and public reactions to the whole event. It’s a political drama set in a tech company.”

Below is the full text of the joint letter disclosed a few minutes ago, sent by resigning OpenAI employees to the board:

To the Board of OpenAI:

OpenAI is the leading global artificial intelligence company. We, the employees of OpenAI, have developed the best large-scale models and pushed them into new territories. Our work in AI safety and governance has become the global standard. The products we have created are used by billions of people around the world. We have built this company with unprecedented strength and have worked hard to cherish it.

Your action of firing Altman and removing Brockman from the board has damaged our work, undermined our mission, and the company as a whole. Your actions indicate that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI.

When we unexpectedly learned of your decision, the leadership team at OpenAI took swift action to stabilize the company’s operations. They carefully listened to your concerns and made every effort to cooperate with you on all fronts. Despite our repeated requests for specific evidence regarding the accusations, you have never provided any written proof. They have also increasingly realized that you are unable to fulfill your duties as board members and have not acted in good faith during the negotiations.

The management recommends that the best course of action to ensure the stable progression of the company is for all of you to resign—it would best serve our mission, the company, stakeholders, employees, and the public—and establish a qualified board of directors to lead the company forward with stability.

Throughout the day, the management has been seeking a mutually acceptable outcome with you. However, within two days of your initial decision, you replaced the interim CEO, which does not align with the best interests of the company. You also informed the management that allowing the company to be destroyed “would align with the company’s mission.”

Your actions clearly demonstrate that the board cannot oversee OpenAI. We cannot work for or collaborate with individuals who lack the capability, judgment, and concern for our mission and employees. We, the individuals who have signed below, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the new Microsoft team operated by Altman and Brockman, as Microsoft has assured us that all OpenAI employees would find positions within the new team if we choose to join.

We will take this step immediately—unless all current board members resign and two new independent co-chairpersons, such as Bret Taylor (former co-CEO of Salesforce) and Will Hurd (former US Congressman, serving as the independent board member of OpenAI), are appointed, and Altman and Brockman’s positions reinstated.

Regardless of how the script unfolds next, the biggest beneficiary should be Microsoft. (Article by Wangdian Finance - Gong Fangyi, intern Liu Quan, He Qianming)

Microsoft stabilizes AI development

Microsoft definitely didn’t lose, as it retained Ultraman and a group of core technical personnel who support him.

If Ultraman had gone to a rival company like Google with a group of core technical personnel, Microsoft would have suffered a real loss.

Ultraman didn’t lose either. He left the troublesome team at OpenAI because he was never compatible with non-profit organizations like them.

Ultraman and Greg Brockman joined Microsoft and continue to lead Microsoft’s new artificial intelligence team, stabilizing their careers and moving to a company where they can have more control.

OpenAI has essentially split up, with conservatives and radicals running separate operations. From this perspective, OpenAI didn’t lose either.

After all, OpenAI was established as a non-profit organization from the beginning, and many of their board members were interested in gradual AI development.

This way, it is a win-win-win situation. Everyone has obtained what they wanted the most.

Microsoft is truly strong because even though their stock price dropped last Friday due to this issue, they resolved it quickly. Currently, before the market opens, Microsoft’s stock price has already risen by more than 2% and recovered from last Friday’s decline.

Microsoft didn’t drag their feet in resolving this matter and stabilized the future development of their AI business, as well as the stock price expectations.

If it’s a win-win situation, Microsoft is the biggest winner among them.

In just a few days, OpenAI has dismissed a CEO, selected an interim CEO, and then another CEO.

It seems like a lot happened, but ultimately, they managed to stabilize the situation.

This shows that Microsoft is experienced in handling such matters.

They can grasp the key point, and the key point is that Ultraman cannot be assimilated by their competitors.

Having invested so much money in AI, they cannot afford to waste it. They must keep Ultraman, regardless of which side he stays on.

In any case, Ultraman must be Microsoft’s core asset in the field of AI.

The internal conflicts within OpenAI no longer matter. If anyone cannot continue there, those who want a more radical development of AI can all go to Microsoft.

They can all follow Ultraman and those who want to slowly benefit all of humanity or continue developing AI can stay at OpenAI. This way, it can also reduce the company’s conflicts.

They have effectively resolved various sharp conflicts that were detrimental to Microsoft’s future AI development.

This matter hasn’t affected Microsoft’s layout in the field of AI.

Ultraman can continue to implement all of his various ideas.

He can continue to attract various investments to create new products.

Fans who love Ultraman and friends who are looking forward to stronger AI products can continue to anticipate them.

If there are no bigger surprises in the future, this play will basically end like this.

Microsoft’s Exploration of OpenAI.

Microsoft:

-“Digging and digging in the small OpenAI.”

Reasons for OpenAI CEO Changes and Commercialization Support for Models

The changes today happened so fast that the trending news on the hot list is often outdated… It’s hard not to be amazed at the speed of OpenAI’s version iterations. It has now evolved to the point where Ilya has joined 500 employees in forcing the board of directors to resign, or else they’ll go to Microsoft.

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So the question is, what is Ilya’s position? If the coup is successful, will Sam and Greg still go to Microsoft? This is just a game.

In just a few days, OpenAI has changed its CEO three times. Mira, as the interim CEO chosen by the board of directors, is completely aligned with Sam.

So the most pitiful person now is actually Emmett Shear. He should not know much about the insider information, but he still carefully wrote down his thoughts and future plans for taking over OpenAI:

Today, I received a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After discussing and reflecting on it with my family for several hours, I accepted the position. Due to the recent birth of my nine-month-old son, I recently resigned from the position of CEO of Twitch. Spending time with my son, as rewarding as I imagined, has allowed me to happily avoid full-time work. I accepted this job because I believe OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence. When the board of directors shared this situation and invited me to take on this role, I did not make a hasty decision. Ultimately, I felt a responsibility to help if I could.

Today, I have tried to learn as much as possible about the situation, talked with the board of directors and a few key partners, and listened to the opinions of employees. Our partnership with Microsoft remains strong, and my top priority in the coming weeks is to ensure that we continue to serve all our customers well. As you might guess, OpenAI’s employees are exceptional and very focused on fulfilling our mission. Obviously, the process and communication surrounding Sam’s departure were handled very poorly, seriously damaging our trust.

In the next 30 days, I have a three-point plan:

• Hire an independent investigator to thoroughly understand the entire process up to now and generate a complete report.
• Continue to talk as much as possible with our employees, partners, investors, and customers, take notes, and share key insights.
• Reform the management and leadership team in light of recent departures, and become an effective force for driving customer outcomes.

Based on what we have learned from all of this, I will drive organizational change — if necessary, I will strongly advocate for major governance changes. Over the next 30 days, as the situation becomes clearer, I will gradually implement these changes. The stability and success of OpenAI is too important to allow such turbulence to interfere with them. I will work hard to address key issues, although in many cases, I believe it may take more than a month to make real progress.

I have great respect for everything Sam and the entire OpenAI team have built. It is not just an amazing research project and software product, but an amazing company. I came here because I knew that, and I want to do everything I can to protect it and further develop it.

Now it is 1 a.m., and I will continue this work tomorrow.

Postscript: I am posting this information here because I believe the public has the right to know about this situation, but please do not expect all future internal communications to be conducted through public channels.

P.S.: Before accepting this job, I understood the reasons behind this change. The board of directors did not replace Sam because of any specific disagreements regarding safety; their reasons were completely different. Without the board’s support for commercializing our outstanding models, I would not be crazy enough to accept this job.

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First, let’s give our sympathies to the honest man, Emmett Shear. Then, pay attention to two key pieces of information, according to the understanding of this “new CEO”:

• The board of directors did not replace Sam because of any specific disagreements regarding safety; their reasons were completely different.
• Without the board’s support for commercializing our outstanding models, I would not be crazy enough to accept this job.

In other words, the board of directors did not dismiss Sam because of safety-related disagreements, and the board supports the commercialization of our excellent models. This is different from what was agreed upon, right? Wasn’t it said that the conflicting opinions were about the safety and commercialization of the advanced GPT model?

Combined with Ilya’s statement and the recently leaked letter of the coup, the plot of OpenAI is becoming more and more mysterious… Now everyone is busy eating melons, and not many people are concerned about the future of GPT-5 and ChatGPT…

No matter what, the development of artificial intelligence has certainly wasted (at least) three days…

They tossed and turned all night, and now that it’s dawn, more “insiders” are about to appear… I’m going to sleep…

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Finally, respect to OpenAI ambassador Logan.

That’s all.

Ultraman’s Departure and the Influence of Steve Jobs

It is astonishing how sensitive the U.S. stock market is. The chart below shows that when Steve Jobs resigned as Apple CEO in 2011, it caused a 3% drop in Apple’s stock price.

This resulted in a loss of $10 billion for Apple. However, the decline at that time was actually better than expected because when Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, the stock fell by a whopping 7% in just one week.

When Ultraman left, both OpenAI and Microsoft had already experienced a decline of more than 1.7%. But after Microsoft announced its acquisition of Ultraman, both stocks began to stabilize.

In fact, Microsoft even climbed 2% as a result.

Why does Ultraman’s departure always get linked to discussions about Steve Jobs? It’s because in any technology company, there are always people questioning the value of business operations and sales personnel. But the fact is, they have been proven wrong time and time again. The role of core business executives in technology companies is just as important as that of any technical personnel. Ultraman played a crucial role in the transformation of OpenAI and had outstanding insights into the team’s development direction. In 2019, when OpenAI’s profits fell short of expectations, he used various business strategies to appease the investors and convinced the board to continue investing heavily in the development of ChatGPT.

During his tenure as CEO of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2018, Ultraman’s exceptional business acumen and bold investments in artificial intelligence left people astonished.

While at Y Combinator, Altman demonstrated skill in high-speed trading and strategic abilities in controlling the situation. Founders often called Ultraman first during crises, relying on his foresight and strategic thinking. One founder at Y Combinator said, “Every trade Sam made felt like he could see the future, and we even hoped he would tell us what was going to happen.”

A trading market with positive feedback is a hardcore support for those with exceptional foresight.

Of course, personally, I still hope that Ultraman can return to OpenAI because he has already proven his vision to the world. Compared to constructing another ChatGPT and accelerating its updates, I clearly believe in the latter. The disruption brought by ChatGPT is extremely shocking. I don’t think he can achieve such results within a short period of time within Microsoft.

Therefore, even though OpenAI has announced the imminent hiring of a new CEO, as if the matter has been settled, we still hope that Microsoft, as the main investor in OpenAI, can bring about a reversal in this matter. For human development, exceptional predictive ability and the best platforms are irreplaceable.

“Restrictions on using Teams”

From now on, you can only use Teams!

Teams is Microsoft’s office software.

Non-Compete Agreement

It seems that there is no non-compete agreement signed.

Competition between Companies

Cultural saying: When the mudskipper and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits.

Internet user: Microsoft is doing zero-dollar purchases.

OpenAI: Heaven will bestow great responsibility upon this person, but first… bring him down.

Google: …Didn’t gain anything! Again!

Investor: What a disaster!

Onlookers: …Let’s pay attention to these two stocks again.

Ultra Man’s Real Name

His real name is indeed Ultra Man!

Microsoft’s Acquisition of OpenAI Has Significant Implications for the Future.

This is the best outcome. If Ultraman and his team were to leave and start a new company or join a competitor, it would be a significant blow to Microsoft’s investment and future expectations.

However, joining Microsoft directly resolves the issue of not having complete control over OpenAI, and is a very cost-effective deal. Additionally, Microsoft does not solely depend on OpenAI, as they continue to conduct their own AI research and develop their own products. This move is a win-win situation for Microsoft.