In firing Altman, OpenAI’s board wanted to keep the element of surprise
In November, something big happened at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Sam Altman, the CEO, left suddenly, making everyone surprised. But guess what? He came back just five days later! This made a lot of people in the tech world really surprised.
Let’s go back a bit. In 2015, Sam Altman, along with other big tech people, started OpenAI. They wanted to help people, not just make money. But later, they realized it’s hard to run a company without enough money. So, in 2019, they changed OpenAI into a “capped-profit” company, creating a way to make money while still having a non-profit board.
Now, back to November. Altman was told to leave by the board. They said they didn’t trust him to lead OpenAI anymore. But we don’t know the real reasons. Some say it’s because he didn’t get along with a board member, Helen Toner. Others say it’s about an advanced AI system called QAR. And some think it’s because Altman was getting too famous, and the board didn’t like that.
This decision surprised everyone, especially Microsoft, which gave a lot of money to OpenAI. Microsoft wanted Altman back, but the board said no. So, Altman and some OpenAI people went to work for Microsoft, and many OpenAI employees wanted to leave too.
The board had a tough choice – lose many employees or bring Altman back. On November 22, OpenAI said Altman was back as the CEO, and the board changed a bit. The problem seemed to be fixed, but it showed a big fight in the AI community.
This fight is between two groups – the ones who want AI to grow fast (like Altman) and those who worry it might be dangerous (the “doomers”). With a lot of money going into AI, it’s a race to see who can make the best AI. But we need to be careful not to make the same mistakes we did with other technologies.
As AI keeps growing, we must be clear, careful, and think about what’s right. The Altman story is over, but the big question about how AI will change our future is still there.
