Subscribe to our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on leading AI developments.
While many details remain unclear about why OpenAI’s board fired CEO Sam Altman on Friday, new information has surfaced revealing that co-founder Ilya Sutskever spearheaded the dismissal with the board’s support. The board’s statement cited a lack of consistent candor from Altman, but the specific reasons and timing remain a mystery.
Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, who resigned after learning of Altman’s firing, were the primary drivers of the company’s business expansion. They focused on aggressively raising funds, expanding OpenAI’s business offerings, and pushing technological capabilities forward. In contrast, Sutskever led the company’s engineering efforts and was deeply concerned about the future implications of OpenAI’s generative AI technology, warning that it could eliminate many jobs.
Observers noted that Sutskever had formed a faction within OpenAI that grew increasingly anxious over the financial and expansion strategies driven by Altman. They believed Altman had deviated from OpenAI’s nonprofit mission. The push for expansion following OpenAI’s Dev Day led to user spikes that strained server capacity, frustrating the research team and possibly contributing to the board’s decision.
Should Sutskever’s leadership shift the company towards prioritizing safety and slowing down growth, it might cause significant unrest among employees who joined with high expectations for rapid progress. Indeed, three senior researchers resigned following the news on Friday night.
During an impromptu all-hands meeting after the firing, Sutskever implied that he and other safety-focused board members felt compelled to intervene to slow things down. He defended the board’s actions as fulfilling their duty to ensure AGI development benefits humanity, despite acknowledging the less-than-ideal nature of the process.
The OpenAI board, besides Altman, Brockman, and Sutskever, includes Quora founder Adam D’Angelo, tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner from Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Reporter Kara Swisher noted that Sutskever and Toner were aligned against Altman and Brockman. The board’s unique mandate to pursue safe AGI and determine when AGI has been achieved recently garnered heightened scrutiny and controversy.
Friday night saw many piecing together a timeline of events, which hinted at conflicts over fundraising and a steep valuation of $90 billion. These likely led to disputes at the board level, with Sutskever and others worried about the potential dangers of recent AI advancements by OpenAI. Altman confirmed that the company was working on GPT-5, and at a recent conference, he expressed pride in OpenAI’s technological advancements, calling it the “professional honor of a lifetime.”
Data scientist Jeremy Howard criticized OpenAI’s Dev Day, calling it an embarrassment for those concerned about safety, and suggesting it may have been the breaking point for Sutskever.
Meanwhile, several tech leaders, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, supported Altman, expressing concerns that the board’s decision could damage OpenAI’s reputation regardless of the firing’s rationale.
Researcher Nirit Weiss-Blatt provided insights into Sutskever’s views, noting that he believed AI could potentially automate all jobs, advocating for a focus beyond mere profit maximization due to the eventual societal impact.
Stay updated by subscribing to our daily newsletter for the latest news.