Sam Altman will not be returning to OpenAI

Talks over reinstating co-founder and former CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI have apparently broken down. According to The Information and Bloomberg, the board has now hired Altman’s fellow Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as OpenAI’s new interim CEO. This appointment was reportedly announced internally by co-founder and board director Ilya Sutskever.

Altman was originally fired from OpenAI over “a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board,” according to an oddly blunt internal staff memo published by Axios earlier. The news was subsequently followed by resignations from several key members, including co-founder Greg Brockman — who was ousted as the chairman of the board — along with a few senior researchers. They may end up joining Altman in one of his rumored new ventures — to develop an AI chip to rival NVIDIA, as well as to build an AI-centric hardware in collaboration with former Apple designer, Jovy Ive.

It won’t be just Altman leaving either. According to a separate report from The Information, “dozens” of OpenAI employees announced internally that they’d be quitting the company as well. Over the weekend, some expressed …read more