Is Sam Altman coming back? (OpenAI drama continues)

Hello friends of AI boardroom drama the story around the firing of open AI CEO Sam Altman has had a few twists and turns since we've last time looked into this and mind you that was yesterday if you're not exactly up to speed with the lore in this universe here Greg Brockman himself the chairman of the board of open AI or former chairman is detailing the key events right here last night Sam got a text from Ilia that's Elia sser asking to talk at noon Friday Sam joined the Google meet and the whole board except Greg was there Greg here being Greg Brookman himself Elia told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon at 12:19 Greg you know the person recounting here got a text from Elia asking for a quick call at 12:23 Ilia sent a Google meet link Greg was told that he was being removed from the board but would retain his role at the company and that Sam had been fired and at that time open AI published a blog post uh detailing all of this and that's when the rest of us knew so this was a behind the doors deal followed by a very quick sweep also none of the investors were informed Microsoft wasn't informed and so on so Sam Alman fired Greg Brockman after that quit one of the big questions was what is the reason for this very unusual happening the reason given that Sam Alton was being fired was that he was quote not consistently candid in his Communications with the board hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities a lot of people are speculating that there was a concern about AI safety and different directions of the company and how fast it should be pushed towards commercialization but also there is a different hypothesis popping up namely that Sam Alman was investing and pulling up startups into the realm of AI Hardware to be in a less dependence from Chip makers like Nvidia or suppliers like Microsoft so to essentially make their own Hardware which would mean Sam Alman would control these startups or these companies which would mean that he himself had much more power over open AI because as of now he as you can see he can be fired quite easily and the hypothesis is that he did not disclose that properly that he was doing all of these things on the side and therefore uh the board may have sacked him again this is an allegation these are early reports and Scoops and people close to The Happening told us types of things so none of this is as yet confirmed open AI themselves specifically the chief operating officer has released a memo saying that the firing was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial business safety or security and privacy practices this was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board so this is an internal memo essentially confirming that there was some things that Sam may have not disclosed to the board to their satisfaction essentially saying that the money is fine we're fine everything's fine it's just that he didn't you know he kind of wasn't too honest which as we all know even though this is an internal memo in no way does it mean that this is the truth this is simply the stated reason or I mean it doesn't even give a reason it's kind of very whooshy if you want to read the full memo uh axio has an article uh detailing what the memo says it's essentially saying everything's fine Sam is gone due to this and we will continue we're going forward yay Yao open AI let's go some fallouts from this open ai's $86 billion share sale that was planned for as early as next month is now in Jeopardy so they were supposed to sell employee shares employees could sell their shares make a bit of cash of it price tag on that will change now that Sam Alman and a few other key employees have left other than employees were shareholders who wanted to sell for a nice price who may be even more upset is uh Microsoft specifically SAA nadela reportedly Furious following alman's dramatic departure from open AI which is understandable probably Alman among open AI leadership was the most into commercialization of what they're doing and the most in favor of taking Microsoft money to grow fast and so on at least that's what we can

see from the outside and yeah therefore Microsoft who's hedged a lot of money on open ai's success especially their commercial success and product success is not super happy and so it comes that news are coming out that Alman is planning a new AI Venture apparently he has had a gathering with open AI employees former and current open AI employees is at his house and is already planning a new business who knows if Microsoft will go along with that on the other hand the open AI board is urged by Microsoft and investors to restore Altman to open AI Alman reportedly is ambivalent so saying like me I don't really care uh I can return but I can also not return that's quite a sigma move I have to say and then shortly after that the news saying open AI board in discuss iions with Sam Alman returning as a CEO and an update that we get in this article here saying a source closed to Alman says the board had agreed in principle to resign and to allow Alman and Brockman to return but since has since waffled missing a key 5:00 pm. deadline by which many open AI staffers were set to resign if Alman decides to leave and start a new company these staffers would assuredly go with him people familiar with the situation close to the source whatever that means saying the discussions are around Alman returning and the board leaving so that confirms the previous report that if Alman actually returns then he would supposedly have a bit more leeway to make decisions and obviously would not want to work under a board that had tried to fire him or that did fire him in sort of a backro deal making from the Microsoft perspective again these are a source told Forbes uh making the Playbook is straightforward make open AI New Management uh under acting CEO Mira morati and the remaining board accept that their situation was untenable through a combination of mass Revolt by senior researchers withheld cloud computing credits from Microsoft and a potential lawsuit from investors facing such a combination the thinking is that management would have to accept Alman back likely leading to the subsequent departure of those belief to have pushed for alman's removal including co-founder ilas sskk and board director Adam D'Angelo CEO of Kora so the investors are going into pressure mode including withholding cloud computing credits and another tweet here from Simeon copying from a Bloomberg article that details more on the nature of alman's dealings with other startups or other companies Alman has been looking to raise tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign weal funds to create an AI chipped startup to compete with processors made by Nvidia according to a person with knowledge of the investment proposal Alman was courting soft Bank chairman masi masayoshi son for a multi-billion dollar investment with a new company to make AI oriented Hardware in partnership with former Apple designer Johnny I in turn open AI employees are sending each other hearts on Twitter quote tweeting each other with hearts lots of hearts for Sam Altman in related news K AI is a new paris-based nonprofit AI lab that has a lot of backing and a lot of big names associated with it saying they're starting with almost 300 million EUR of philanthropic support and having people such as Yan laah on their advisory boards could this be the new open AI who knows speaking of yan laa meta according to the verge disbanded its response responsible AI team So Meta dividing up responsible AI into just individual people who are joining other teams I don't know exactly if this is just a restructuring or if the age of dedicated responsible AI is over and is more integrated into product teams and into research teams themselves so who knows uh everything is up in the air will definitely continue to closely monitor the situation around open Ai and surrounding happenings if Altman comes back it's going to probably be quite a different open AI a even more producty open AI if he doesn't come back supposedly it's going to be a bit more of a closed off and uh researchy and effective alter open AI but all of these things are just speculations we're excited to see what happens and we'll keep on it see you around