Dismissal with subsequent return – Kommersant FM
[ad_1]
OpenAI investors demanded the return of the fired CEO. According to media reports, Microsoft also wants to reinstate Sam Altman: the corporation owns the largest share of more than $10 billion. The IT giant is discussing scenarios with other funds; it is possible that the OpenAI board of directors will eventually be replaced.
Earlier, the board of developer ChatGPT announced that it was firing Sam Altman due to “lack of candor.” After this, three senior researchers and company president Greg Brockman voluntarily resigned. It is noted that Altman is ambivalent about the return and will agree subject to significant changes in the way OpenAI is managed.
The Guardian also learned that shortly before his dismissal, Altman admitted to investors that he was working on launching another company. This, among other things, became the cause of the conflict, admits the head of the artificial intelligence developer Sistemma Sergey Zubarev:
“After November 6, when OpenAI introduced new features – image search was added to GhatGPT, combining all other functions into a single window – it so happened that the company was unable to provide the necessary power to everyone, they even closed the sale of new accounts.
I think this is where the first conflict arose. Ilya Sutskever, by the way, a native of Nizhny Novgorod, which is why people in the industry joked that this city had never had such an influence on world politics, became one of the initiators of the dismissal. He is in charge of research as the chief scientist of AI development and, of course, is more focused on making a quality product.
When everything happens so quickly, the company was forced to pay less attention to previous products, the so-called distillation, when the AI model is reduced. Apparently, this is an eternal struggle between sales and production. Everyone who uses ChatGPT has noticed that the quality has dropped dramatically.
I think Sam Altman will not return to his post because the conflict is old. At the same time, the board of directors will most likely be replaced, because such sudden actions greatly interfere with business development.
In addition, we have not yet seen how the markets will play out this situation. They are already writing that the company could lose up to $80 billion in a moment. Now it is valued at $90 billion. That is, if the central team leaves, there is nothing left of the company except the name.”
According to former OpenAI President Greg Brockman, before the online call with the board of directors, Altman had no idea about his impending resignation. Microsoft, according to Bloomberg, learned about the plans a few minutes earlier. OpenAI employees, as the media write, initially perceived the news as a coup or even a hostile takeover.
Commenting on his dismissal, Altman did not voice his reasons and promised to tell him later what he would do. He compared the experience of retirement to “reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive.” At the same time, the media noted that the conflict between the top manager and the OpenAI board could also concern methods of commercializing products.
However, Alexander Chachava, managing partner of the venture fund LETA Capital, is confident that the discord in management occurred due to the speed of development of generative AI: “As far as we know, the board of directors does not include representatives of corporations like Microsoft. It consists of three OpenAI founders and three scientists. One of them can be called an entrepreneur with some stretch: Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora.
It was most likely possible to fire Sam Altman, the idol, the founder, only by a majority vote. At the same time, he himself and Greg Brockman, who also left the company, were against resignation. I think that if four scientists made such a decision, then the conflict most likely lies in the plane of science rather than business.
If we remember why Elon Musk left OpenAI at one time, then the conflict also concerned ethics or the danger that artificial intelligence can cause to humanity.
They really moved very quickly towards the very creation of AGI, an algorithm that is believed to be able to completely replace a person.”
On the news of Sam Altman’s dismissal, Microsoft shares immediately fell by almost 2.5%. The media indicate that if, through the mediation of investors, Altman agrees to return to the company, he will be reinstated as CEO in the near future.
Nevertheless, the personnel scandal will not pass without a trace for OpenAI, IT expert Valentin Kaskov is convinced: “Sam’s return will, of course, affect his salary, bonuses and dividends that he will receive. I think that in this case he will negotiate better conditions for himself.
However, in the context of investor relations this cannot be forgiven. The market reacts to this quite clearly. That is, you have a team of engineers who start running in and out of the company. There are not many brave souls who, in such a situation, will invest money in the development of a product and business. Most likely, we will see, if not an outflow, then definitely a freeze on investments in OpenAI for some time.
As for the prospects of Sam Altman and his team, the first option is to go to competitors, primarily Google. They just overtook him. He was a pioneer in generative algorithms, he just didn’t understand how to make this service accessible to all people.
And the second option is to create your own company. But here you need to understand that there is quite little time to catch up, and the volume that needs to be developed is quite large. The distance between their product and ChatGPT Turbo is gigantic.”
Sam Altman founded OpenAI with Elon Musk in 2015, the latter later leaving the company. Since 2019, Microsoft began actively investing in developers. A year later, Altman became CEO. Now his duties are temporarily performed by technical director Mira Murati.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
[ad_2]
Source link
