…On a hush-hush 15-minute video call the previous afternoon, the board members had voted one by one to push Sam Altman out of OpenAI. Now they were delivering the news. Shocked that he was being fired from a start-up he had helped found, Altman widened his eyes and then asked, “How can I help?” The board members urged him to support an interim chief executive. He assured them that he would.

…At the center of the storm was Mr. Altman, a 38-year-old multimillionaire. A vegetarian who raises cattle and a tech leader with little engineering training, he is driven by a hunger for power more than by money, a longtime mentor said. [Peter Thiel?]

…The drama embroiled Microsoft, which had committed $13 billion to OpenAI and weighed in to protect its investment. Many top Silicon Valley executives and investors, including the chief executive of Airbnb, also mobilized to support Altman. Some fought back from Altman’s $27 million mansion in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood, lobbying through social media and voicing their displeasure in private text threads, according to interviews with more than 25 people with knowledge of the events. Many of their conversations and the details of their confrontations have not been previously reported.

In September, Altman met investors in the Middle East to discuss an AI chip project. [Tigris?] The board was concerned that he wasn’t sharing all his plans with it, 3 people familiar with the matter said

…He also believed that Altman was bad-mouthing the board to OpenAI executives, two people with knowledge of the situation said. [the Slack EA purge conversation?] Other employees have also complained to the board about Altman’s behavior. [cf. Time/WSJ]

…In October, Altman promoted another OpenAI researcher [Jakub Pachocki] to the same level as Ilya Sutskever, who saw it as a slight. Sutskever told several board members that he might quit, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The board interpreted the move as an ultimatum to choose between him and Altman, the people said. Sutskever’s lawyer said it was “categorically false” that he had threatened to quit. [There has to be more to this.]

…Altman called other board members and said Tasha McCauley wanted Helen Toner removed from the board, people with knowledge of the conversations said. [reported by Time but not that McCauley was the lied-about member; presumably Altman would not be manipulating Sutskever, so the other ‘board members’ being told must be Toner & Adam D’Angelo.] When board members later asked Ms. McCauley if that was true, she said that was “absolutely false.” “This substantially differs from Sam’s recollection of these conversations”, an OpenAI spokeswoman said, adding that the company was looking forward to an independent review of what transpired.

…Satya Nadella then phoned D’Angelo, OpenAI’s lead independent director. What could Altman have done, Nadella asked, to cause the board to act so abruptly? Was there anything nefarious? “No”, D’Angelo replied, speaking in generalities. Nadella remained confused.

…At the same time, OpenAI’s employees were demanding details. The board dialed into a call that afternoon to talk to about 15 OpenAI executives, who crowded into a conference room at the company’s offices in a former mayonnaise factory in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood. The board members said that Altman had lied to the board, but that they couldn’t elaborate for legal reasons. “This is a coup”, one employee shouted. Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, accused the board of violating its fiduciary responsibilities. “It cannot be your duty to allow the company to die”, he said, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting. Ms. Toner replied, “The destruction of the company could be consistent with the board’s mission.” [cf. WSJ]

…The support gave Altman ammunition. He flirted with creating a new start-up, but Chesky and Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley investor and friend, urged Altman to reconsider. “You should be willing to fight back at least a little more”, Chesky told him. Altman decided to take back what he felt was his.

…That day, more than two dozen supporters showed up at Altman’s house to lobby OpenAI’s board to reinstate him. They set up laptops on his kitchen’s white marble countertops and spread out across his living room. Mira Murati joined them and told the board that she could no longer be interim chief executive.

To capitalize on the board’s vulnerability, Altman posted on Twitter: “i love OpenAI employees so much.” Murati and dozens of employees replied with emojis of colored hearts.

Yet even as the board considered bringing Altman back, it wanted concessions. That included bringing on new members who could control Altman. The board encouraged the addition of Bret Taylor, Twitter’s former chairman, who quickly won everyone’s approval and agreed to help the parties negotiate. As insurance, the board also sought another interim chief executive [Emmett Shear] in case talks with Altman broke down.

By then, Altman had gathered more allies. Nadella, now confident that Altman was not guilty of malfeasance, threw Microsoft’s weight behind him…In a call with Altman that day, Nadella proposed another idea. What if Altman joined Microsoft? The $2,800b company had the computing power for anything that he wanted to build…Altman now had two options: negotiating a return to OpenAI on his terms or taking OpenAI’s talent with him to Microsoft.

The Board Stands Firm: By November 19, Altman was so confident that he would be reappointed chief executive that he and his allies gave the board a deadline: Resign by 10AM or everyone would leave.

Altman went to OpenAI’s office so he could be there when his return was announced. Greg Brockman also showed up with his wife, Anna Brockman. (The couple had married at OpenAI’s office in a 2019 ceremony officiated by Sutskever. The ring bearer was a robotic hand [see Dactyl].)…Only about a dozen workers showed up, including Sutskever. In the lobby, Anna Brockman approached him in tears. She tugged his arm and urged him to reconsider Altman’s removal. He stood stone-faced.

…Altman and his camp suggested Penny Pritzker, a secretary of commerce under President Barack Obama; Diane Greene, who founded the software company VMware; and others. But Altman and the board could not agree, and they bickered over whether he should rejoin OpenAI’s board and whether a law firm should conduct a review of his leadership.

…To break the impasse, D’Angelo and Altman talked the next day. D’Angelo suggested former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, a professor at Harvard, for the board. Altman liked the idea. Summers, from his Boston-area home, spoke with D’Angelo, Altman, Nadella and others. Each probed him for his views on AI and management, while he asked about OpenAI’s tumult. He said he wanted to be sure that he could play the role of a broker.

Summers’s addition pushed Altman to abandon his demand for a board seat and agree to an independent investigation of his leadership and dismissal. By late November 21, they had a deal. Altman would return as chief executive, but not to the board. Summers, D’Angelo and Taylor would be board members, with Microsoft eventually joining as a nonvoting observer. Toner, McCauley and Sutskever would leave the board.

This week, Altman and some of his advisers were still fuming. They wanted his name cleared. “Do u have a plan B to stop the postulation about u being fired its not healthy and its not true! ! !” Conway texted Altman. Altman said he was working with OpenAI’s board: “They really want silence but i think important to address soon.”

See Also: