The soap opera seems to never end, right? Wasn’t it true that Microsoft had brilliantly signed Sam Altman after he was fired from OpenAI? Now, that’s not so clear in an unexpected turn of events.
Sam Altman’s surprising signing by Microsoft after his unexpected dismissal from OpenAI is not a done deal.
Both Sam Altman and his co-founder, Greg Brockman, are reportedly willing to return to OpenAI if the board members who dismissed them step aside, according to several sources reporting to The Verge.
Employee pressure is crucial for the comeback
The promised mass exodus of virtually all OpenAI employees – including Ilya Sutskever, a board member and chief scientist who initially voted for their expulsion – means there’s more pressure than ever on the board. Only two of the remaining three members need to switch sides.
Sam Altman tweeted, “We are all going to work together one way or another,” which, as we’ve been told, indicates that the struggle continues.
The former CEO and chairman, along with the company’s investors, are still trying to find an elegant way out for the board, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, appeared on CNBC and Bloomberg TV and when directly asked if Sam Altman and the OpenAI employees would join Microsoft, Nadella said, “That’s for the board and management of OpenAI and their employees to decide.”
He continued, stating that Microsoft “explicitly chose to partner with OpenAI [and] obviously that depends on people from OpenAI either staying there or coming to Microsoft, so I’m open to both.”
It’s clear the soap opera isn’t over. If Sam Altman ends up returning to OpenAI as CEO, it’ll be an unprecedented turn of events in the tech industry… since Steve Jobs did the same with Apple in the ’80s.
