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The OpenAI power<\/a><\/span> struggle that captivated the tech world after co-founder Sam Altman was fired has finally reached its end \u2014 at least for the time being. But what to make of it?<\/p>\n It feels almost as though some eulogizing is called for \u2014 like OpenAI died and a new, but not necessarily improved, startup stands in its midst. Ex-Y Combinator president Altman is back at the helm, but is his return justified? OpenAI\u2019s new board of directors is getting off to a less diverse start<\/a> (i.e. it\u2019s entirely white and male), and the company\u2019s founding philanthropic aims are in jeopardy of being co-opted by more capitalist interests.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to suggest that the old OpenAI was perfect by any stretch.<\/p>\n As of Friday morning, OpenAI had a six-person board<\/a> \u2014 Altman, OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, Quora CEO Adam D\u2019Angelo and Helen Toner, director at Georgetown\u2019s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies. The board was technically tied to a nonprofit that had a majority stake in OpenAI\u2019s for-profit side, with absolute decision-making power over the for-profit OpenAI\u2019s activities, investments and overall direction.<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s unusual structure was established by the company\u2019s co-founders<\/a>, including Altman, with the best of intentions. The nonprofit\u2019s exceptionally brief (500-word) charter outlines that the board make decisions ensuring \u201cthat artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity,\u201d leaving it to the board\u2019s members to decide how best to interpret that. Neither \u201cprofit\u201d nor \u201crevenue\u201d get a mention in this North Star document; Toner reportedly<\/a> once told Altman\u2019s executive team that triggering OpenAI\u2019s collapse \u201cwould actually be consistent with the [nonprofit\u2019s] mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe the arrangement would have worked in some parallel universe; for years, it appeared to work well enough at OpenAI. But once investors and powerful partners got involved, things became\u2026 trickier.<\/p>\n After the board abruptly canned Altman on Friday without notifying just about anyone, including the bulk of OpenAI\u2019s 770-person workforce, the startup\u2019s backers began voicing their discontent in both private and public.<\/p>\n Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, a major<\/a>\u00a0OpenAI\u00a0collaborator<\/a>, was\u00a0allegedly<\/a> \u201cfurious\u201d to learn of Altman\u2019s departure. Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, another OpenAI backer, said on X (formerly Twitter) that the fund wanted<\/a> Altman back. Meanwhile, Thrive Capital, the aforementioned Khosla Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital were said to be contemplating legal action against the board if negotiations over the weekend to reinstate Altman didn\u2019t go their way.<\/p>\n Now, OpenAI employees weren\u2019t\u00a0unaligned<\/em> with these investors from outside appearances. On the contrary, close to all of them \u2014 including Sutskever, in an apparent change of heart \u2014 signed<\/a> a letter threatening the board with mass resignation if they opted not to reverse course. But one must consider that these OpenAI employees had a lot to lose should OpenAI crumble \u2014 job offers from Microsoft<\/a> and Salesforce<\/a> aside.<\/p>\n OpenAI had been in discussions, led by Thrive, to possibly sell employee shares in a move that would have boosted<\/a> the company\u2019s valuation from $29 billion to somewhere between $80 billion and $90 billion. Altman\u2019s sudden exit \u2014 and OpenAI\u2019s rotating<\/a> cast of questionable<\/a> interim CEOs \u2014 gave Thrive cold feet, putting the sale in jeopardy.<\/p>\n But now after several breathless, hair-pulling days, some form of resolution\u2019s been reached. Altman \u2014 along with Brockman, who resigned on Friday in protest over the board\u2019s decision \u2014 is back<\/a>, albeit subject to a background investigation into the concerns that precipitated his removal. OpenAI has a new transitionary board<\/a>, satisfying one of Altman\u2019s demands. And OpenAI will reportedly retain its structure, with investors\u2019 profits capped and the board free to make decisions that aren\u2019t revenue-driven.<\/p>\n Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff posted on X that \u201cthe good guys\u201d won. But that might be premature to say.<\/p>\n Sure, Altman \u201cwon,\u201d besting a board that accused him of \u201cnot [being] consistently candid\u201d with board members and, according to some reporting, putting growth over mission. In one example of this alleged rogueness, Altman was said to have been<\/a> critical of Toner over a paper she co-authored that cast OpenAI\u2019s approach to safety in a critical light \u2014 to the point where he attempted to push her off the board. In another, Altman \u201cinfuriated<\/a>\u201d Sutskever by rushing the launch of AI-powered features at OpenAI\u2019s first developer conference.<\/p>\n The board didn\u2019t explain themselves even after repeated chances, citing possible legal challenges. And it\u2019s safe to say that they dismissed Altman in an unnecessarily histrionic way. But it can\u2019t be denied that the directors might have had valid reasons for letting Altman go, at least depending on how they interpreted their humanistic directive.<\/p>\n The new board seems likely to interpret that directive differently.<\/p>\n Currently, OpenAI\u2019s board consists of former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, D\u2019Angelo (the only holdover from the original board) and Larry Summers, the economist and former Harvard president. Taylor is an entrepreneur\u2019s entrepreneur, having co-founded numerous companies, including FriendFeed (acquired by Facebook) and Quip (through whose acquisition he came to Salesforce). Meanwhile, Summers has deep business and government connections \u2014 an asset to OpenAI, the thinking around his selection probably went, at a time when regulatory scrutiny of AI is intensifying<\/a>.<\/p>\n The directors don\u2019t seem like an outright \u201cwin\u201d to this reporter, though \u2014 not if diverse viewpoints were the intention. While six seats have yet to be filled, the initial four set a rather homogenous tone; such a board would in fact be illegal in Europe, which mandates<\/a> companies reserve at least 40% of their board seats for women candidates.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not the only one who\u2019s disappointed. A number of AI academics turned to X to air their frustrations earlier today.<\/p>\n Noah Giansiracusa, a math professor at Bentley University and the author of a book on social media recommendation algorithms, takes issue both with the board\u2019s all-male makeup and the nomination of Summers, who he notes has a history of making unflattering remarks<\/a> about women.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever one makes of these incidents, the optics are not good, to say the least \u2014 particularly for a company that has been leading the way on AI development and reshaping the world we live in,\u201d Giansiracusa said via text. \u201cWhat I find particularly troubling is that OpenAI\u2019s main aim is developing artificial general intelligence that \u2018benefits all of humanity.\u2019 Since half of humanity are women, the recent events don\u2019t give me a ton of confidence about this. Toner most directly representatives the safety side of AI, and this has so often been the position women have been placed in, throughout history but especially in tech: protecting society from great harms while the men get the credit for innovating and ruling the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Christopher Manning, the director of Sanford\u2019s AI Lab, is slightly more charitable than \u2014 but in agreement with \u2014 Giansiracusa in his assessment:<\/p>\n \u201cThe newly formed OpenAI board is presumably still incomplete,\u201d he told TechCrunch. \u201cNevertheless, the current board membership, lacking anyone with deep knowledge about responsible use of AI in human society and comprising only white males, is not a promising start for such an important and influential AI company.\u201d<\/p>\nAltman\u2019s firing unites Microsoft, OpenAI\u2019s employees<\/h2>\n
Altman won the five-day battle, but at what cost?<\/h2>\n
Why some AI experts are worried about OpenAI\u2019s new board<\/h2>\n