(San Francisco) Discussions within OpenAI to bring back Sam Altman, the artificial intelligence startup’s recently ousted CEO, continued Sunday afternoon, but there were disagreements over board composition of directors of the company, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Mr. Altman, 38, spent the weekend lobbying the startup’s four-person board of directors, which ousted him Friday afternoon, three people with knowledge of the matter said. ‘affair. The result was a groundswell of support from OpenAI investors, employees, and executives.
Mr. Altman was at OpenAI headquarters on Sunday afternoon. He posted a photo of himself on social network
Negotiations included how the company’s board could be reshaped if Mr. Altman becomes CEO again, two of the people said. Board members have not yet agreed on what a restructured board might look like — and Mr. Altman’s reinstatement is not a certainty either, two of the people said. .
On Sunday afternoon, Will Hurd, a former OpenAI board member and former Republican congressman from Texas, stood outside the company’s headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission District, waiting to be taken to the airport after spending two days reviewing the details of Mr. Altman’s firing.
Mr. Hurd said a company representative called him Friday morning, before Mr. Altman’s firing, and asked him to help deal with the leadership shakeup. Mr. Hurd traveled from Texas to San Francisco on Saturday.
“The industry is big, the business is big,” Hurd said. It’s about the future. How do we ensure there is a level of trust and transparency? Everything we expect from models, we expect from management. »
OpenAI declined to comment.
The OpenAI board of directors is unique. The organization started as a nonprofit before transforming into a for-profit corporation and welcoming Microsoft as a major investor. The for-profit company continues to report to the nonprofit’s board of directors. As a result, the company’s investors have not had an official say in the fate of the startup or who runs it.
Before Mr. Altman was ousted, OpenAI’s board had six members, including Mr. Altman and Greg Brockman, the company’s co-founder and board chairman, who resigned Friday in solidarity with Mr. Altman.
Other board members are Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI, Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora, a question-and-answer site, Helen Toner, director of strategy at the Center for Security and Emerging Technologies. Georgetown University, and Tasha McCauley, entrepreneur and computer scientist.
This impasse is the latest twist in a series of power struggles within OpenAI. The fight has drawn attention to a long-standing divide in the artificial intelligence (AI) community between those who believe AI is the biggest business opportunity of this generation and those who fear that too much development fast is dangerous.
The company was recently in talks for a new fundraising that would value it at more than $80 billion. Bloomberg News previously reported some details of these discussions.
Mr. Altman’s potential reinstatement would be a dramatic turnaround for OpenAI, which said he had not been “always candid” in his discussions with the board when it unceremoniously ousted him.
As deliberations continued on Sunday, OpenAI executives called for reinforcements. At 12:45 p.m., a delivery man loaded with a dozen drinks from the Boba Guys chain showed up outside on a motorcycle with two bags. Another delivery guy followed later with half a dozen more drinks.