When OpenAI\u2019s board asked Sam Altman to return a day after they fired him, he initially felt defiant, hurt and angry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt took me a few minutes to snap out of it and get over the ego and emotions to then be like, \u2018Yeah, of course I want to do that,\u2019\u201d he told me by phone on Wednesday. \u201cObviously, I really loved the company and had poured my life force into this for the last four and a half years full time, but really longer than that with most of my time. And we\u2019re making such great progress on the mission that I care so much about, the mission of safe and beneficial AGI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
After an attempted boardroom coup that lasted five days, Altman officially returned as CEO of OpenAI on Wednesday. The company\u2019s biggest investor, Microsoft, is planning to take a non-voting board seat as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
During our interview, Altman repeatedly declined to answer the main question on everyones\u2019 minds: exactly why he was fired to begin with. OpenAI\u2019s new board, led by Bret Taylor, is going to conduct an independent investigation into what went down. \u201cI very much welcome that,\u201d Altman told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Below is my full interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and CTO Mira Murati, lightly edited for clarity:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sam, I would like to address first the elephant in the room, which is that we still don\u2019t know exactly why you were fired to begin with. Why do you think you were fired?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sam Altman: <\/strong>The board is gonna do like a independent review here. I very much welcome that. I don\u2019t have much else to say now but I\u2019m looking forward to learning more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Why do you think the board said it lost trust in you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n That will be a better question for them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n You said on X just now that \u201cit\u2019s clear that there were real misunderstandings\u201d between yourself and members of the board. What were those misunderstandings?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I don\u2019t feel ready to go talk about that yet. I think it\u2019s very important to let this review process run. I\u2019m happy to talk about anything forward looking. And I imagine there\u2019ll be some time where I\u2019m very happy to talk about what happened here, but not now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Can you tell me why you can\u2019t talk about it right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I just want to like let this process go and not interfere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n You talked about Ilya Sutskever [OpenAI\u2019s chief scientist] in your note. Can you let me in a little bit on why he changed his mind and decided to side with everyone else?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mira Murati: <\/strong>We don\u2019t know. You\u2019d have to ask Ilya that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sam, what was, in hindsight, the main driving force here that got you to come back?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Altman:<\/strong> It was really interesting. Saturday morning, some of the board called me and asked if I\u2019d be up for talking about it. And my immediate reaction was sort of one of defiance, it was like, \u201cMan, I\u2019m hurt and angry, and I think this sucks.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n And then pretty immediately I started thinking about like, obviously, I really loved the company and had poured my life force into this for the last four and a half years full time, but really longer than that with most of my time. And we\u2019re making such great progress on the mission I care so much about, the mission of safe and beneficial AGI. But also the people here and all of the partners who have taken such big bets on us, and Mira and the leadership team and all of the people here who do incredible work. It took me a few minutes to snap out of it and get over the ego and emotions to then be like, \u201cYeah, of course I want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So the board asked you to come back?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n And you were initially hesitant?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Not for long. There\u2019s a lot of feelings there after that happened to me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was clear that the employees were with you. How big of a factor do you think that was?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Definitely we have come through this with a stronger and more unified and focused and committed team. I thought we had great conviction and focus before and now I think we have like way, way, way more. So that\u2019s my silver lining to all of this. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Throughout this whole thing, we did not lose a single employee, a single customer. Not only did they keep the products up even in the face of very difficult to manage growth, they also shipped new features. Research progress continued.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Do you want back on the board?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is gonna sound like a PR talking point: it\u2019s not my area of focus right now. I have a mountain of very difficult, important, and urgent work. I want to be able to do my job well, but it\u2019s not like [being] on the board or not. That\u2019s not the thing I\u2019m spending my time thinking about right now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What does \u201cimproving our governance structure\u201d mean? Is the nonprofit holding company structure going to change?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s a better question for the board members, but also not right now. The honest answer is they need time and we will support them in this to really go off and think about it. Clearly our governance structure had a problem. And the best way to fix that problem is gonna take a while. And I totally get why people want an answer right now. But I also think it\u2019s totally unreasonable to expect it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Why do you think that\u2019s unreasonable? I think people see a lot of vagaries about what happened. And it seems like it was disagreements, not malfeasance, or anything like that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Oh, just because designing a really good governance structure, especially for such an impactful technology is not a one week question. It\u2019s gonna take a real amount of time for people to think through this, to debate, to get outside perspectives, for pressure testing. That just takes a while.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Is anything about OpenAI\u2019s approach to safety work changing as a result of the events that just unfolded?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n