Reasons Why 500 OpenAI Employees Threaten to Quit
Last Friday, the board of directors just announced the firing of CEO Sam Altman. The board of the company conducted a review process before making the decision to dismiss him. During the review process, it was shown that Altman’s communication was not consistently honest. Due to this reason, they no longer have confidence in him to lead OpenAI.
This, however, is not surprising, since the tension between the company’s board of directors has been happening for more than a year, according to The New York Times. On Monday, however, Microsoft hired the former OpenAI CEO.
According to The Verge, OpenAI’s board has received a letter mentioning that the employees will leave the board if Altman is not reinstated. “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.” 500 current OpenAI employees have said this. Since the letter was received the night before the dismissal happened, it might be too late for the board to do anything with it.
Open AI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who was reported to have led to his dismissal, showed regret for the board’s actions. “I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.” Also, with pressure from his colleagues, Sutskever signed the letter calling on the board to reverse course and apologized on social media on Monday.
According to CNN and The Verge, the employees signing the letter have accused the OpenAI board of jeopardizing their work and undermining the company’s mission. Adding to that is negotiating in bad faith with the company’s executive leadership. To them, it seems that the board lacks evidence that Altman is not honest with them. Hence, this is seen as mishandling the firing of CEO Sam Altman. From two days ago, according to Wisher reports, there are currently 700 employers at OpenAI, which are still being filled out with their signatures.
Before Altman was fired, there were concerns raised about the pace of AI development and potential conflicts with Altman’s side projects. Investors in OpenAI, including Microsoft, are calling for governance changes to prevent similar crises in the future. However, discussions on these changes are deferred until there is clarity on Altman’s future at the company.
OpenAI’s directors have already engaged in discussions with Sam Altman to potentially reinstate him to the board. Today, Sam Altman is back as CEO of OpenAI. He showed how delighted he is on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter). Also, interim CEO Emmett Shear has called for an independent investigation into the decision to oust Altman and has pledged management reforms.
