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  • A timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI — and the fallout | TechCrunch

    A timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI — and the fallout | TechCrunch

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    In a dramatic turn of events late Friday, ex-Y Combinator president Sam Altman was fired as CEO of AI startup OpenAI, the company behind viral AI hits like ChatGPT, GPT-4 and DALL-E 3, by OpenAI’s board of directors. Then, the company’s longtime president and co-founder, Greg Brockman, resigned — as did three senior OpenAI researchers. And the fallout continues.

    Tip TechCrunch

    Do you work at OpenAI and know more about Sam Altman’s departure? Get in touch with TechCrunch.

    It’s a fast-moving situation that we’re still trying to get to the bottom of. No doubt more will become clear as time goes on. To make it easier to follow all that’s happened in the meantime, though, we’ve put together a timeline; we’ll do our best to keep it current.

    Timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI

    November 16

    Ilya Sutskever schedules call with Altman

    According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI and a co-founder, texted Altman on Thursday evening about scheduling a Friday noon call.

    Murati told of Altman’s firing

    Brockman alleges that Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO and now interim CEO, was informed on Thursday night that Altman would be fired.

    —

    November 17

    Brockman demoted

    Brockman says he got a text from Sutskever shortly after noon on Friday asking for a quick call. After sending a Google Meet link, Brockman was told that he was being removed from the board as chairman “but was vital to the company and would retain his role” as president, and that Altman had been fired.

    Altman’s firing publicly announced

    OpenAI published a post on its blog announcing the executive shake-up. The company’s management team was aware shortly after.

    All-hands meeting

    OpenAI held an all-hands meeting Friday afternoon during which Sutskever defended Altman’s ouster. He dismissed suggestions that pushing Altman out amounted to a “hostile takeover,” and claimed that it was necessary to protect OpenAI’s mission of “making AI beneficial to humanity.”

    Microsoft releases a statement

    Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, a major investor in — and partner with — OpenAI, published a statement about Altman’s firing:

    “As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we’re continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI, with over 100 announcements across the full tech stack from AI systems, models and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering all of this to our customers while building for the future. We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world.”

    Brockman quits

    Brockman announced his resignation from OpenAI, citing “today’s news.” After sending a memo internally, he published the text on X.

    Senior OpenAI researchers resign

    Three senior OpenAI researchers resign after Brockman, including the director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of preparedness Aleksander Madry.

    —

    November 18

    “Not … in response to malfeasance”

    In an internal memo obtained by Axios sent Saturday morning, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said yesterday’s announcement “took [the management team] by surprise” and that management had had “multiple conversations with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.” Discussions were ongoing as of Saturday morning, per the memo.

    “We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” Lightcap added. “This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board … We still share your concerns about how the process has been handled, are working to resolve the situation, and will provide updates as we’re able.”

    OpenAI’s funding in jeopardy

    The planned sale of OpenAI employee shares that would value the startup at about $86 billion could be in jeopardy. The Information, speaking to three sources formerly with the company, reports that they no longer expect the sale — led by Thrive Capital — to happen, or, if it does, to come with a lesser valuation because of the recent turn of events.

    Altman planning new venture

    Altman has been telling investors that he’s planning to launch a new venture, according to The Information. Brockman is expected to join the effort — whatever form it takes. (Possibly an AI chip startup.)

    Investors pushing for Altman’s return

    Investors — furious at the turn of events — are reportedly exerting pressure on OpenAI’s board to reinstate Altman, going so far as to recruit Microsoft. Nadella is said to be sympathetic.

    Board agrees to reverse course — in principle

    The Verge reports that the board agreed in principle to resign and to allow Altman and Brockman to return. It waffled, however, missing a deadline yesterday by which many OpenAI staffers were set to leave the company. Altman is said to be ambivalent about coming back and asking for “significant” governance changes.

    November 19

    Altman to meet at OpenAI HQ

    According to The Information, Altman is expected to meet at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters as executives at OpenAI push to have him reinstated as CEO. Brockman was invited to join — but it’s unclear whether he’ll take execs up on that invitation.

    Board negotiations hit a snag

    Bloomberg reports that Lightcap and Murati, among others, are pushing the board to reinstate Altman. But unsurprisingly, the directors are resisting. As of midday Sunday, the board hadn’t resigned out of concern over who could replace them, and were vetting candidates. One possible new addition could be Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.

    Altman out, Shear in

    Altman won’t be returning as CEO, according to a report in The Information citing an internal memo sent by Sutskever. As the search for a new permanent CEO continues, OpenAI has appointed Emmett Shear, the co-founder of video streaming site Twitch, as interim CEO — replacing Murati.

    —

    November 20

    Altman joins Microsoft

    Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and colleagues announce that they’ll join Microsoft to lead a new AI research team. Nadella leaves the door open to other OpenAI staffers, saying that they’ll be given the resources they need should they choose to join.

    Sutskever’s mea culpa

    Sutskever publishes a post on X suggesting that he regrets his decision to remove Altman and that he’ll do everything in his power to reinstate Altman as CEO.

    Employees threaten to resign

    Nearly 500 of OpenAI’s roughly 770 employees — including, remarkably, Sutskever — publish a letter saying that they might quit unless the startup’s board resigns and reappoints the ousted Altman. Later Monday, that number climbed to over 650.

    Altman and Brockman considering return

    As reported by The Verge, Altman’s move to Microsoft isn’t a done deal — and both Altman and Brockman are still open to returning to OpenaI. That is, if the remaining board members who initially fired him step aside.

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    Kyle Wiggers

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  • New OpenAI Leader’s Chilling ‘Doom’ Warning May Scare Your Pants Off

    New OpenAI Leader’s Chilling ‘Doom’ Warning May Scare Your Pants Off

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    The new interim CEO of OpenAI suggested earlier this year that artificial intelligence holds a level of potential risk for humankind that “should cause you to s**t your pants.”

    Emmett Shear, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitch, was appointed over the weekend to lead OpenAI after its board of directors ousted its longtime CEO Sam Altman in a shock firing on Friday.

    In a June interview on “The Logan Bartlett Show” podcast, Shear said he feared that AI technology could evolve until it is smart enough to design artificial intelligence on its own, “fully self-improve itself” and outsmart humans.

    “That kind of intelligence is just an intrinsically very dangerous thing,” he said. “Because intelligence is power. Human beings are the dominant form of life on this planet, pretty much entirely because we’re smarter than the other creatures now.”

    He assessed the “probability of doom” as somewhere between 5 and 50%.

    His interviewer, Bartlett, noted that most AI experts seem to place some percentage of risk on the technology. He cited Paul Christiano, an OpenAI researcher who has thrown around a variety of alarming figures about the probability of bad outcomes from AI in the long term.

    “That should cause you to shit your pants,” Shear said.

    In June, Shear shared a clip from the interview on X (formerly Twitter), saying the exchange “more or less captures my high level beliefs around AI and how dangerous it is.”

    That clip was resurfaced and shared on Sunday after Shear was announced as OpenAI’s interim leader.

    In a Sunday post on X, Shear said he accepted the role because he believes OpenAI to be one of the “most important companies currently in existence” and “ultimately I felt that I had a duty to help if I could.”

    He shared a three-point plan to be executed over the next 30 days, including hiring an independent investigator to dig into Altman’s ouster and the “entire process leading up to this point.”

    The findings, he said, would inform whether the company needed further governance changes.

    The exact reason for Altman’s firing was not disclosed by the company, but the board said in its announcement that he was “not consistently candid in his communications with the board.”

    In an internal memo obtained by The New York Times, board members said Altman’s “lack of transparency in his interactions with the board undermined the board’s ability to effectively supervise the company in the manner it was mandated to do.”

    The news sent shockwaves through the tech industry over the weekend, and punctuates the ongoing debate over the multibillion-dollar AI boom and the potential perils the technology poses for the human race.

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  • A timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI — and the fallout | TechCrunch

    A timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI — and the fallout | TechCrunch

    [ad_1]

    In a dramatic turn of events late Friday, ex-Y Combinator president Sam Altman was fired as CEO of AI startup OpenAI, the company behind viral AI hits like ChatGPT, GPT-4 and DALL-E 3, by OpenAI’s board of directors. Then, the company’s longtime president and co-founder, Greg Brockman, resigned — as did three senior OpenAI researchers. And the fallout continues.

    Tip TechCrunch

    Do you work at OpenAI and know more about Sam Altman’s departure? Get in touch with TechCrunch.

    It’s a fast-moving situation that we’re still trying to get to the bottom of. No doubt more will become clear as time goes on. To make it easier to follow all that’s happened in the meantime, though, we’ve put together a timeline; we’ll do our best to keep it current.

    Timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI

    November 16

    Ilya Sutskever schedules call with Altman

    According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI and a co-founder, texted Altman on Thursday evening about scheduling a Friday noon call.

    Murati told of Altman’s firing

    Brockman alleges that Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO and now interim CEO, was informed on Thursday night that Altman would be fired.

    —

    November 17

    Brockman demoted

    Brockman says he got a text from Sutskever shortly after noon on Friday asking for a quick call. After sending a Google Meet link, Brockman was told that he was being removed from the board as chairman “but was vital to the company and would retain his role” as president, and that Altman had been fired.

    Altman’s firing publicly announced

    OpenAI published a post on its blog announcing the executive shake-up. The company’s management team was aware shortly after.

    All-hands meeting

    OpenAI held an all-hands meeting Friday afternoon during which Sutskever defended Altman’s ouster. He dismissed suggestions that pushing Altman out amounted to a “hostile takeover,” and claimed that it was necessary to protect OpenAI’s mission of “making AI beneficial to humanity.”

    Microsoft releases a statement

    Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, a major investor in — and partner with — OpenAI, published a statement about Altman’s firing:

    “As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we’re continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI, with over 100 announcements across the full tech stack from AI systems, models and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering all of this to our customers while building for the future. We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world.”

    Brockman quits

    Brockman announced his resignation from OpenAI, citing “today’s news.” After sending a memo internally, he published the text on X.

    Senior OpenAI researchers resign

    Three senior OpenAI researchers resign after Brockman, including the director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of preparedness Aleksander Madry.

    —

    November 18

    “Not … in response to malfeasance”

    In an internal memo obtained by Axios sent Saturday morning, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said yesterday’s announcement “took [the management team] by surprise” and that management had had “multiple conversations with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.” Discussions were ongoing as of Saturday morning, per the memo.

    “We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” Lightcap added. “This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board … We still share your concerns about how the process has been handled, are working to resolve the situation, and will provide updates as we’re able.”

    OpenAI’s funding in jeopardy

    The planned sale of OpenAI employee shares that would value the startup at about $86 billion could be in jeopardy. The Information, speaking to three sources formerly with the company, reports that they no longer expect the sale — led by Thrive Capital — to happen, or, if it does, to come with a lesser valuation because of the recent turn of events.

    Altman planning new venture

    Altman has been telling investors that he’s planning to launch a new venture, according to The Information. Brockman is expected to join the effort — whatever form it takes. (Possibly an AI chip startup.)

    Investors pushing for Altman’s return

    Investors — furious at the turn of events — are reportedly exerting pressure on OpenAI’s board to reinstate Altman, going so far as to recruit Microsoft. Nadella is said to be sympathetic.

    Board agrees to reverse course — in principle

    The Verge reports that the board agreed in principle to resign and to allow Altman and Brockman to return. It waffled, however, missing a deadline yesterday by which many OpenAI staffers were set to leave the company. Altman is said to be ambivalent about coming back and asking for “significant” governance changes.

    November 19

    Altman to meet at OpenAI HQ

    According to The Information, Altman is expected to meet at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters as executives at OpenAI push to have him reinstated as CEO. Brockman was invited to join — but it’s unclear whether he’ll take execs up on that invitation.

    Board negotiations hit a snag

    Bloomberg reports that Lightcap and Murati, among others, are pushing the board to reinstate Altman. But unsurprisingly, the directors are resisting. As of midday Sunday, the board hadn’t resigned out of concern over who could replace them, and were vetting candidates. One possible new addition could be Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.

    Altman out, Shear in

    Altman won’t be returning as CEO, according to a report in The Information citing an internal memo sent by Sutskever. As the search for a new permanent CEO continues, OpenAI has appointed Emmett Shear, the co-founder of video streaming site Twitch, as interim CEO — replacing Murati.

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    Kyle Wiggers

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  • Sam Altman returned to OpenAI HQ and could be reinstated as CEO soon. Elon Musk says ‘the public should be informed’ why he was fired in the first place

    Sam Altman returned to OpenAI HQ and could be reinstated as CEO soon. Elon Musk says ‘the public should be informed’ why he was fired in the first place

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    It’s been a tumultuous weekend for OpenAI and anyone who follows the field of artificial intelligence. After the OpenAI board fired CEO Sam Altman on Friday, investors who’d been taken off guard by the move raced to reinstate him. 

    On Sunday afternoon, Altman was back in the OpenAI headquarters, Bloomberg reported, and the decision to reinstate him could be made shortly. Altman shared a photo of himself on X wearing a guest badge and making a face, writing, “first and last time i ever wear one of these.”

    But even if he is reinstated, questions remain about why the board fired him in the first place. The board gave only vague reasons on Friday.

    Among those wanting to know is Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who wrote on X: “Given the risk and power of advanced AI, the public should be informed of why the board felt they had to take such drastic action.”

    When an X user said it felt as if there were a “bombshell variable” the public was unaware of behind Altman’s firing, Musk replied, “Exactly.”

    And AI expert Gary Marcus worried that it did not bode well that the OpenAI board—presumably in control of the capped-profit company and with an eye on the nonprofit mission—was apparently overpowered as investors raced to get Altman back into his role.

    OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap told Bloomberg, “we have had multiple conversations with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision,” which took him and others at the company by surprise.

    Eric Newcomer, who hosts a technology podcast, wrote in his newsletter that Altman should not be given too much power.

    “The public should not want, nor should the OpenAI board give Altman unbridled power to run OpenAI as he pleases,” he wrote. “Altman has a history of fractious corporate breakups…These board members are not the first people to question Altman’s integrity. They’ve just done so in public.”  

    He mentioned among others the power struggle with Musk, who was an OpenAI cofounder in 2015 and helped attract key talent, but left a few years later on a sour note. Musk later complained about the onetime nonprofit that he meant to serve as a counterweight to Google becoming a “closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all.” 

    Musk was key to recruiting Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at the center of OpenAI’s leadership shakeup. Sutskever is on the current board and is the one who informed Altman of his dismissal, according to Greg Brockman, who quit as president in protest of Altman’s firing.

    The board agreed to step down, Bloomberg reported, and was vetting new candidates to serve as directors.

    How the board might be reshaped remains to be seen. According to sources Bloomberg spoke with, among the new members will be Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce.

    Another possibility is a board seat going to Microsoft, whose CEO Satya Nadella was reportedly blindsided by the decision to fire Altman.

    The software giant has committed at least $13 billion to OpenAI since 2019 but only delivered some of that. It’s questionable whether OpenAI could continue operating without the continual cash infusions and computing power provided by Microsoft, which means Microsoft wields considerable power with or without a presence on the board.

    Subscribe to the Eye on AI newsletter to stay abreast of how AI is shaping the future of business. Sign up for free.

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    Steve Mollman

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  • Race to reinstate Sam Altman as OpenAI CEO reaches impasse over new role and makeup of the board that ousted him

    Race to reinstate Sam Altman as OpenAI CEO reaches impasse over new role and makeup of the board that ousted him

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    A group of OpenAI executives and investors racing to get Sam Altman reinstated to his role as chief executive officer have reached an impasse over the makeup and role of the board, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The decision to restore Altman’s role as CEO could come quickly, though talks are fluid and still ongoing. 

    At midday Sunday, Altman and former President Greg Brockman were in the startup’s headquarters, according to people familiar with the matter.

    OpenAI leaders pushing for the board to resign and to reinstate Altman include Interim CEO Mira Murati, Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon and Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. 

    Altman, who was fired Friday, is open to returning but wants to see governance changes — including the removal of existing board members, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private. After facing intense pressure following their decision to fire Altman Friday, the board agreed in principle to step down, but have so far refused to officially do so. The directors have been vetting candidates for new directors. 

    At the center of the high-stakes negotiations between the executives, investors and the board is Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella. Nadella has been leading the charge on talks between the different factions, some of the people said. Microsoft is OpenAI’s biggest investor, with $13 billion invested in the company. 

    Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce Inc., will be on the new board, several people said. Another possible addition is an executive from Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft — but it’s unclear whether the software giant would take a board seat despite its large investment, some of the people said. 

    The chaos began on Friday, when the directors led by OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever dismissed Altman, saying “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.” In a memo to staff Saturday, Lightcap said the decision to fire the CEO “was not made in response to malfeasance” or the company’s financial or safety practices.

    Altman’s ousting “took us all by surprise,” Lightcap said in the memo, adding that  “we have had multiple conversations with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.” 

    One longstanding issue that has divided the company was Altman’s drive to turn OpenAI, which got its start as a nonprofit organization, into a successful business — and how quickly he wanted the company to crank out products and sign up customers. That ran headlong into board member concerns over the safety of artificial intelligence tools capable of generating text, images and even computer code with minimal prompting.

    Altman is keeping his options open, according to people familiar with his thinking, and is interested in returning to OpenAI, starting a new company or both. 

    Subscribe to the Eye on AI newsletter to stay abreast of how AI is shaping the future of business. Sign up for free.

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    Emily Chang, Edward Ludlow, Rachel Metz, Dina Bass, Bloomberg

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  • Cardano Founder Courts OpenAI’s Sam Altman, What Does He Want To Build?

    Cardano Founder Courts OpenAI’s Sam Altman, What Does He Want To Build?

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    OpenAI recently announced a shocking leadership change with Sam Altman being ousted as CEO. After five years of being at the helm of taking OpenAI from a $0 to $80 billion valuation, the AI company is now at a crossroads with Altman departing and former Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Mira Murati taking over as interim CEO. 

    Altman hasn’t provided specifics of his next actions; however, he has posted on social media that he “will have more to say about what’s next later.” In light of this, Charles Hoskinson, the creator of Cardano, sees a window of opportunity. Hoskinson gave the former CEO a bold proposal on social media platform X to join hands in establishing a decentralized language learning model in partnership with the Cardano blockchain. 

    Hoskinson Wants To Build A Decentralized Language Learning Model

    Charles Hoskinson has a vision for AI that embraces decentralization and openness. As the founder of Cardano and a former co-founder of Ethereum, Hoskinson knows a thing or two about building decentralized networks. Hoskinson’s vision of a decentralized language learning model is ambitious, but promising. 

    On the other end, if there’s anyone who knows anything about language learning models, it is definitely Sam Altman. The former CEO is known for being one of the architects of the language models that power ChatGPT, which has gained widespread adoption since its launch in November 2022.

    Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $36.680. Chart: TradingView.com

    If Altman takes Hoskinson up on his offer, it could mark a turning point in how AI models like ChatGPT are built and how they serve users. A decentralized LLM would essentially be available to everyone and resistant to censorship, tampering, and monopolization by governments and large corporations, which is one of the concerns being raised regarding existing LLMs. 

    Aftermath Of Sam Altman’s Removal As CEO

    Altmann’s removal as CEO sent ripples around the AI and crypto industries. Greg Brockman, president and one of the co-founders of OpenAI, also announced his departure from the company. 

    As one would expect, WorldCoin reacted negatively to the news. According to data from Coinmarketcap, Worldcoin (WLD) dropped by 12.75% in the hours following the news of the CEO’s removal. However, the crypto has since recovered and is now trading at $2.38. 

    According to OpenAI’s announcement, the decision to fire Altman was made by the board of directors, as they’ve lost confidence in his ability to continue his duties as CEO due to his lack of transparency in his communications. However, rumors are that OpenAI investors are looking to reinstate Altmann into his job as CEO.

    Cardano ADA is trading at $0.375 at the time of writing. According to a crypto analyst, ADA could spike to the $0.78 mark if it is able to break out of the current falling wedge pattern.

    Featured image from Pexels

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    Scott Matherson

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  • What Sam Altman said about AI at a CEO summit the day before OpenAI ousted him as CEO

    What Sam Altman said about AI at a CEO summit the day before OpenAI ousted him as CEO

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    Sam Altman is out as CEO of OpenAI after a “boardroom coup” on Friday that shook the tech industry. Some are likening his ouster to Steve Jobs being fired at Apple, a sign of how momentous the shakeup feels amid an AI boom that has rejuvenated Silicon Valley.

    Altman, of course, had much to do with that boom, caused by OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT to the public late last year. Since then, he’s crisscrossed the globe talking to world leaders about the promise and perils of artificial intelligence. Indeed, for many he’s become the face of AI. 

    Where exactly things go from here remains uncertain. In the latest twists, some reports suggest Altman could return to OpenAI and others suggest he’s already planning a new startup. 

    But either way, his ouster feels momentous, and, given that, his last appearance as OpenAI’s CEO merits attention. It occurred on Thursday at the APEC CEO summit in San Francisco. The beleaguered city, where OpenAI is based, hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week, having first  cleared away embarrassing encampments of homeless people (though it still suffered embarrassment when robbers stole a Czech news crew’s equipment).

    Altman answered questions onstage from, somewhat ironically, moderator Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of the late Apple cofounder. She asked Altman how policymakers can strike the right balance between regulating AI companies while also being open to evolving as the technology itself evolves.

    Altman started by noting that he’d had dinner this summer with historian and author Yuval Noah Harari, who has issued stark warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence to democracies, even suggesting tech executives should face 20 years in jail for letting AI bots sneakily pass as humans. 

    The Sapiens author, Altman said, “was very concerned, and I understand it. I really do understand why if you have not been closely tracking the field, it feels like things just went vertical…I think a lot of the world has collectively gone through a lurch this year to catch up.”

    He noted that people can now talk to ChatGPT, saying it’s “like the Star Trek computer I was always promised.” The first time people use such products, he said, “it feels much more like a creature than a tool,” but eventually they get used to it and see its limitations (as some embarrassed lawyers have). 

    He said that while AI hold the potential to do wonderful things like cure diseases on the one had, on the other, “How do we make sure it is a tool that has proper safeguards as it gets really powerful?” 

    Today’s AI tools, he said, are “not that powerful,” but “people are smart and they see where it’s going. And even though we can’t quite intuit exponentials well as a species much, we can tell when something’s gonna keep going, and this is going to keep going.” 

    The questions, he said, are what limits on the technology will be put in place, who will decide those, and how they’ll be enforced internationally. 

    Grappling with those questions “has been a significant chunk of my time over the last year,” he noted, adding, “I really think the world is going to rise to the occasion and everybody wants to do the right thing.”

    Today’s technology, he said, doesn’t need heavy regulation. “But at some point—when the model can do like the equivalent output of a whole company and then a whole country and then the whole world—maybe we do want some collective global supervision of that and some collective decision-making.”

    For now, Altman said, it’s hard to “land that message” and not appear to be suggesting policymakers should ignore present harms. He also doesn’t want to suggest that regulators should go after AI startups or open-source models, or bless AI leaders like OpenAI with “regulatory capture.” 

    “We are saying, you know, ‘Trust us, this is going to get really powerful and really scary. You’ve got to regulate it later’—very difficult needle to thread through all of that.”

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    Steve Mollman

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  • OpenAI’s board is no match for investors’ wrath | TechCrunch

    OpenAI’s board is no match for investors’ wrath | TechCrunch

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    On Friday, the board of OpenAI, the AI startup behind ChatGPT and other viral AI-powered hits, did something unexpected but seemingly well within its right: removed the company’s CEO, Sam Altman.

    But judging by how the situation’s unfolded, it seems that OpenAI’s investors and partners — and many of its employees — were more comfortable with the idea of the board’s power than it exercising that power. And they didn’t count on the cult of personality surrounding Altman, the former president of Y Combinator and a longtime fixture of the Silicon Valley startup scene.

    On Saturday evening, just over 24 hours after the OpenAI board unceremoniously announced that Altman would be replaced by Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO, on a temporary basis, multiple publications published reports suggesting that the OpenAI board was in talks to have Altman return at the helm.

    What changed their mind? The ire and panic, of investors, no doubt — and rankled ranks.

    Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, a major OpenAI partner, was reportedly “furious” to learn of Altman’s departure “minutes” after it happened, and has been in touch with Altman — and pledged to support him — as OpenAI backers recruit Microsoft’s aid in exerting pressure on the board to reverse course. Meanwhile, some key venture capital backers of OpenAI are said to be contemplating a lawsuit against the board; none, including Khosla Ventures and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a former OpenAI board member, were given advance notice of the decision to fire Altman.

    Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla said the fund wants Altman back at OpenAI but will back him in “whatever he does next.”

    Microsoft in particular has a lot of leverage. OpenAI has received only a fraction of the company’s recent $10 billion investment, according to Semafor, and a significant portion of the funding is in the form of cloud compute purchases instead of cash. Withholding those credits — and the rest of the cash investment — could leave OpenAI, which is hungry for capital as the costs of running and training its AI systems mount, in a financially untenable position.

    As the board considers its next move, OpenAI top AI researchers and executives are calling it quits.

    On Friday, Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and a co-founder, resigned after the board stripped him of his position as chair. Three senior OpenAI researchers left after Brockman, including the director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of preparedness Aleksander Madry. And more employees are reportedly tendering their resignations.

    They perceive it as a power struggle with unacceptable levels of collateral damage between two board members in particular, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo and Sutskever, and Altman. Sutskever said during a company all-hands meeting on Friday that he felt removing Altman was “necessary” to protect OpenAI’s mission of “making AI beneficial to humanity,” suggesting Altman’s commercial ambitions for the company were beginning to unsettle the board’s kingmakers. (OpenAI’s board is technically a part of a nonprofit that governs OpenAI’s monetization strategy.)

    But many in the tech community — and apparently OpenAI — felt the opposite. The outpouring of high-profile support for Altman was immediate.

    And so, as Altman and Brockman approach investors about a new AI-chip-focused venture and OpenAI’s employee stock sale faces an uncertain future, the board of directors has an uncomfortable about-face ahead of it. Sutskever and the rest of the board — tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley; and Helen Toner, the director of strategy at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology — might’ve felt their decision on Altman’s firing was right and justified. But it seems it wasn’t truly their decision to make.

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    Kyle Wiggers

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  • OpenAI Executive Addresses CEO Sam Altman’s Firing In Memo To Employees

    OpenAI Executive Addresses CEO Sam Altman’s Firing In Memo To Employees

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    OpenAI executive Brad Lightcap addressed the recent news of CEO Sam Altman’s firing from the company in a brief memo to employees on Saturday and provided some more transparency about the decision.

    In the memo obtained by CNBC, Lightcap said Altman’s firing on Friday “took everyone by surprise” and that multiple ongoing conversations are being held with the board to gain more information about the reasons behind the decision.

    “We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices. This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board,” he wrote.

    Lightcap assured employees that the company remains in a strong position, adding that its partnership with Microsoft is unaffected by the leadership change. OpenAI has gained billions of dollars from Microsoft amid the growing interest in ChatGBT.

    On Friday, OpenAI’s board of directors announced Altman’s shocking departure from the artificial intelligence research company he co-founded in 2015. In a statement, the board wrote that it “no longer has confidence in [Altman’s] ability to continue leading OpenAI” following a review process that found he “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.”

    Altman wrote on social media Friday: “i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people.”

    Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, would serve as interim CEO.

    The board added that Greg Brockman was also stepping down as chair of the board but would remain at the company and report to the CEO. A few hours later, Brockman announced that he, too, would depart from the company “based on today’s news.”

    The news of Altman’s sudden departure from OpenAI came as a shock, and questions linger about what led to his firing.

    In a social media post on Friday evening, Brockman wrote that he and Altman are “still trying to figure out exactly what happened” and provided a timeline of some events from that day.

    OpenAI’s board has not publicly shared additional information about Altman’s firing since the announcement on Friday. In the memo on Saturday, Lightcap said that updates will be provided to employees as soon as possible.

    “Mira has our full support as CEO. We still share your concerns about how the process has been handled, are working to resolve the situation, and will provide updates as we’re able,” Lightcap wrote in the memo.

    “I’m sure you all are feeling confusion, sadness, and perhaps some fear. We are fully focused on handling this, pushing toward resolution and clarity, and getting back to work.”

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  • Ousted OpenAI CEO Altman planning new AI venture

    Ousted OpenAI CEO Altman planning new AI venture

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    By Krystal Hu, Anna Tong and Jeffrey Dastin

    (Reuters) -Sam Altman, the recently ousted CEO of OpenAI, has been working on a new artificial intelligence venture he is planning to launch, sources briefed on the plan said on Saturday.

    Former OpenAI president Greg Brockman, who said he quit OpenAI over Altman’s firing on Friday, is expected to join the effort, according to the Information, which reported the venture earlier citing a person familiar with the matter.

    Altman could not be reached for comment and Brockman did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

    Some researchers at OpenAI, including Szymon Sidor, have quit the company over the CEO change but it was unclear if Sidor and others will join Altman’s new venture.

    Altman and Apple’s former design chief Jony Ive have been discussing building a new artificial intelligence (AI) hardware device, the Information reported in September. It also reported at the time that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has also been involved in the conversation.

    The board of OpenAI, the company behind hit product ChatGPT, on Friday pushed out its high-profile CEO Altman. Co-founder Brockman quit shortly after Altman was fired.

    Altman’s ouster was over “breakdown of communications,” not “malfeasance”, Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap wrote in an internal company memo earlier Saturday that was viewed by Reuters.

    (Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York, Anna Tong and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco, Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kenneth Li)

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  • A timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI — and the fallout | TechCrunch

    A timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI — and the fallout | TechCrunch

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    In a dramatic turn of events late Friday, ex-Y Combinator president Sam Altman was fired as CEO of AI startup OpenAI, the company behind viral AI hits like ChatGPT, GPT-4 and DALL-E 3, by OpenAI’s board of directors. Then, the company’s longtime president and co-founder, Greg Brockman, resigned — as did three senior OpenAI researchers. And the fallout continues.

    Tip TechCrunch

    Do you work at OpenAI and know more about Sam Altman’s departure? Get in touch with TechCrunch.

    It’s a fast-moving situation that we’re still trying to get to the bottom of. No doubt more will become clear as time goes on. To make it easier to follow all that’s happened in the meantime, though, we’ve put together a timeline; we’ll do our best to keep it current.

    Timeline of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI

    November 16

    Ilya Sutskever schedules call with Altman

    According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI and a co-founder, texted Altman on Thursday evening about scheduling a Friday noon call.

    Murati told of Altman’s firing

    Brockman alleges that Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO and now interim CEO, was informed on Thursday night that Altman would be fired.

    —

    November 17

    Brockman demoted

    Brockman says he got a text from Sutskever shortly after noon on Friday asking for a quick call. After sending a Google Meet link, Brockman was told that he was being removed from the board as chairman “but was vital to the company and would retain his role” as president, and that Altman had been fired.

    Altman’s firing publicly announced

    OpenAI published a post on its blog announcing the executive shake-up. The company’s management team was aware shortly after.

    All-hands meeting

    OpenAI held an all-hands meeting Friday afternoon during which Sutskever defended Altman’s ouster. He dismissed suggestions that pushing Altman out amounted to a “hostile takeover,” and claimed that it was necessary to protect OpenAI’s mission of “making AI beneficial to humanity.”

    Microsoft releases a statement

    Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, a major investor in — and partner with — OpenAI, published a statement about Altman’s firing:

    “As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we’re continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI, with over 100 announcements across the full tech stack from AI systems, models and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering all of this to our customers while building for the future. We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world.”

    Brockman quits

    Brockman announced his resignation from OpenAI, citing “today’s news.” After sending a memo internally, he published the text on X.

    Senior OpenAI researchers resign

    Three senior OpenAI researchers resign after Brockman, including the director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of preparedness Aleksander Madry.

    —

    November 18

    “Not … in response to malfeasance”

    In an internal memo obtained by Axios sent Saturday morning, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said yesterday’s announcement “took [the management team] by surprise” and that management had had “multiple conversations with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.” Discussions were ongoing as of Saturday morning, per the memo.

    “We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” Lightcap added. “This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board … We still share your concerns about how the process has been handled, are working to resolve the situation, and will provide updates as we’re able.”

    OpenAI’s funding in jeopardy

    The planned sale of OpenAI employee shares that would value the startup at about $86 billion could be in jeopardy. The Information, speaking to three sources formerly with the company, reports that they no longer expect the sale — led by Thrive Capital — to happen, or, if it does, to come with a lesser valuation because of the recent turn of events.

    Altman planning new venture

    Altman has been telling investors that he’s planning to launch a new venture, according to The Information. Brockman is expected to join the effort — whatever form it takes.

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    Kyle Wiggers

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  • What Elon Musk has said about Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at the center of OpenAI’s leadership upheaval 

    What Elon Musk has said about Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at the center of OpenAI’s leadership upheaval 

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    OpenAI just underwent an abrupt, dramatic leadership shakeup. A key figure at the center of the turmoil is also a big reason that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is no longer friends with Google cofounder and former CEO Larry Page. 

    On Friday, OpenAI announced that cofounder and CEO Sam Altman had been fired by the board of directors, and that Mira Murati, the chief technology officer, would serve as interim CEO. The maker of the AI chatbot ChatGPT claimed that Altman was “was not consistently candid” with the board, without providing details.

    It also said that another cofounder, chairman Greg Brockman, would be removed from that role while staying at the company. But Brockman then indicated that he would quit.

    That meant that there was only remaining member of the core founding group behind OpenAI: Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist. A Russian-born Israeli-Canadian, Sutskever is a leading expert in deep learning, a subset of machine learning. He’s also on OpenAI’s board.

    Ilya Sutskever, Russian Israeli-Canadian computer scientist and cofounder and chief scientist of OpenAI, speaks at Tel Aviv University on June 5.

    JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images

    “Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday,” Brockman wrote on X late Friday. “Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon.”

    Central to the shakeup was the issue of AI safety, according to anonymous sources who spoke to Bloomberg, with Altman and Sutskever disagreeing on how quickly to commercialize generative AI products and the steps needed to reduce possible public harm.

    Musk’s tussle with Google over Sutskever

    Musk has a history with both OpenAI, which he played a key role in starting, and with Sutskever, whom he persuaded to join OpenAI as a cofounder and chief scientist in 2015, rather than stay at Google. On a Nov. 9 episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast, Musk described how pivotal Sutskever was to the success of OpenAI. 

    In 2015, Musk said, he worked hard to recruit Sutskever to OpenAI, which he then envisioned as open-source nonprofit that would act as a counterweight to Google’s power in artificial intelligence. Musk has long warned of the potential dangers of AI. 

    Meanwhile Demis Hassabis, cofounder and CEO of DeepMind, which Google acquired in 2014, was trying to persuade Sutskever that Google was the best place for him.  

    “It was mostly Demis on one side and me on the other, both trying to recruit Ilya, and Ilya went back and forth,” said Musk. “Finally he did agree to join openAI. That was one of the toughest recruiting battles I’ve ever had, but that was really the linchpin for OpenAI being successful.”

    Musk described himself as the “prime move behind OpenAI, in the sense that it was created because of discussions that I had with [Google cofounder] Larry Page back when he and I were friends.” 

    He described staying at Page’s house and talking to him about AI safety.

    “Larry did not care about AI safety, or at least at the time he didn’t,” Musk said. “At one point he called me a speciesist for being pro-human. And I’m like, ‘Well, what team are you on Larry?’”

    Musk said that what concerned him was that Google had acquired DeepMind and had “probably two-thirds of all the AI researchers in the world. They had basically infinite money and compute, and the guy in charge, Larry Page, did not care about safety.” 

    When Fridman suggested Musk and Page might become friends again, Musk replied, “I’d like to be friends with Larry again. Really the breaking of the friendship was over OpenAI, and specifically I think the key moment was recruiting Ilya Sutskever.” 

    Musk called Sutskever “a good human—smart, good heart.” 

    Disappointment with OpenAI

    Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 after a power struggle. In the years since he’s expressed disgust with its direction under Altman, especially after OpenAI accepted billions in investments from Microsoft and moved away from its nonprofit status.  

    Altman has called Musk a “jerk” but also recently acknowledged his role in OpenAI’s founding. 

    “Elon was definitely a talent magnet and attention magnet, for sure, and also just like has some real superpowers that were super helpful to us in those early days,” he said on the In Good Company podcast in September.

    Musk, for his part, tweeted earlier this year, “OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all.” 

    Subscribe to the Eye on AI newsletter to stay abreast of how AI is shaping the future of business. Sign up for free.

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    Steve Mollman

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  • Worldcoin (WLD) Crashes By 11% As OpenAI Pushes Out Sam Altman

    Worldcoin (WLD) Crashes By 11% As OpenAI Pushes Out Sam Altman

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    Worldcoin (WLD) experienced a sharp decline in its market price on Saturday after its founder, Sam Altman, was removed as the CEO of popular artificial intelligence company OpenAI. This development follows the heavy regulatory scrutiny on the crypto project due to privacy concerns.

    OpenAI Votes Out Sam Altman, Cites Loss Of Confidence

    In a shocking development on Friday, OpenAI announced a leadership change, stating that Sam Altman will immediately exit the company as its CEO. 

    In this statement, the company expressed its gratitude to Altman for contributing immensely to their development during his four-year tenure as their global leader. 

    However, after an intense review process by the board of directors, it was concluded that the Worldcoin founder had not been fully honest in his exchanges with the board, leading to a loss of confidence in his ability to continue his duties as CEO.

    Following Altman’s departure, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, will now act as interim CEO pending the appointment of a permanent successor.

    However, as one could expect, Altman’s removal as OpenAI CEO, combined with the scathing statements in the company’s announcement, has created a negative sentiment around the Worldcoin project. 

    According to data from CoinMarketCap, WLD is currently down by 12.75% over the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the token’s daily trading volume has managed to remain afloat with a 15.13% gain.

    What Next For Worldcoin? 

    Worldcoin was officially launched in July with the goal of creating the largest digital identity and financial network. The project relies on the use of iris-scanning orbs to physically admit new members, prompting concerns about privacy, anonymity, and user data protection.

    After Altman’s departure from OpenAI, there are currently speculations on Worldcoin’s future trajectory. Clearly, Worldcoin benefited from Altman’s visibility as OpenAI’s CEO, as reflected in the token’s current downtrend.

    Notably, WLD gained by over 25% in October, with many analysts citing anticipation of the OpenAI developer conference in November as the driving force. 

    Therefore, the removal of Altman from OpenAI may not bode well for Worldcoin in terms of credibility and public investor sentiments. On the other hand, Worldcoin could soon recover from its market slump and rise to higher heights despite this new challenge. 

    Following its public official launch in July, Worldcoin came under much criticism from global regulators who expressed concerns over operations in regard to the collection of data using iris scanning orbs and the potential applications of user data. 

    Notably, Worldcoin has been suspended from Kenya, while the governments of the United Kingdom and Germany have opened investigations into the project’s operation. 

    However, the crypto project has remained resilient despite these regulatory hurdles, marking a milestone of 4 million app downloads and 1 million monthly active users, as reported earlier in November.

    At the time of writing, WLD trades at $1.85, with a 0.86% decline in the last hour. Meanwhile, the token’s market cap stands valued at $211.37 million.

    WLD trading at $1.874 on the daily chart | Source: WLDUSDT chart on Tradingview.com

    Featured image from The Independent, chart from Tradingview

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    Semilore Faleti

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  • Greg Brockman quits OpenAI after abrupt firing of Sam Altman | TechCrunch

    Greg Brockman quits OpenAI after abrupt firing of Sam Altman | TechCrunch

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    OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman has quit the firm, he said Friday, hours after the Microsoft-backed giant abruptly fired its chief executive Sam Altman and assured that Brockman would remain at the startup. Brockman’s sudden departure adds to the day’s uncertainties at OpenAI, following closely on the heels of its maiden developer conference led by Altman.

    Brockman said in a series of tweets that Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI, informed Altman about a Friday noon call on Thursday evening. On the call, Sutskever and the rest of the OpenAI board members told Altman that he had been fired.

    “As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior,” Brockman wrote. Mira Murati, the CTO of OpenAI, has been appointed as interim CEO of OpenAI, the startup said today.

    OpenAI earlier said that Brockman was stepping down as chairman of the board, but will remain at the firm. Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, is a close confidant of the former OpenAI chief executive. He said Friday that the board wanted him to continue, but he had chosen to resign and was saddened by the board’s direction.

    OpenAI and Microsoft, which is not on the board of the startup but owns roughly half of the company, remain tightlipped about what led to the ouster of Altman from the startup, whose large language model kickstarted / supercharged the AI race.

    The pair’s exit has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley. Altman has been the public face of the startup, which not only is widely estimated to be leading the current AI race but has in less than a year also assumed the position of kingmaker for countless other startups that are building atop of OpenAI’s offerings.

    “I’m super proud of what we’ve all built together since starting in my apartment 8 years ago. We’ve ben through tough & great times together, accomplishing so much despite all the reasons it should have been impossible,” wrote Brockman in a message to OpenAI team. “But based on today’s news, I quit. Genuinely wishing you all nothing but the best. I continue to believe in the mission of creating safe AGI that benefits all of humanity.”

    Earlier on Friday, OpenAI said Altman had left the firm after losing the confidence of the board. OpenAI said Altman was leaving the firm after a “deliberative review process” by the board” concluded that he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the board, which hindered “its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

    The announcement comes less than two weeks after OpenAI held its maiden developer conference, where Altman shared that ChatGPT had amassed 100 million users. Microsoft chief Satya Nadella, who was a chief guest at the conference, said “we love you guys.” In a later interview with FT, Altman said he expected to raise “a lot more” from Microsoft and other investors in the future.

    “We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world,” Nadella said in a statement Friday.

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    Manish Singh

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  • A lawyer fired after citing ChatGPT-generated fake cases is sticking with AI tools: ‘There’s no point in being a naysayer’ 

    A lawyer fired after citing ChatGPT-generated fake cases is sticking with AI tools: ‘There’s no point in being a naysayer’ 

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    Artificial intelligence will bring changes to many professions, including law. But it’s also claiming victims who trust too much in its capabilities.

    Among them is Zachariah Crabill, who was an overwhelmed rookie lawyer at a law firm in Colorado Springs when he gave in to the temptation of using ChatGPT in May.

    The AI chatbot helped him write a motion in seconds, saving him hours of work, as local radio station KRDO reported in June. But after he filed the document with a Colorado court, he realized that something was amiss: Several lawsuit citations generated by ChatGPT were made up.

    OpenAI’s ChatGPT is known to be confidently wrong, and in this case it simply created cases out of thin air that sounded convincing. Crabill did not check to make sure the cases were real before submitting his work.

    Crabill admitted his mistake to the judge, who reported him to statewide office, and in July the young attorney was fired from his job at Baker Law Group. 

    In his statement to the court admitting his mistake, Crabill wrote, “I felt my lack of experience in legal research and writing, and consequently, my efficiency in this regard could be exponentially augmented to the benefit of my clients by expediting the time-intensive research portion of drafting.” 

    Crabill isn’t the only lawyer to trust ChatGPT too much. In June, two lawyers were scolded and fined $5,000 by a federal judge in New York for submitting a legal brief that also cited nonexistent cases. 

    In sanctions against Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, the judge wrote: “Technological advances are commonplace, and there is nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance. But existing rules impose a gatekeeping role on attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings.”

    “I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases,” Schwartz had earlier told the judge.

    But Crabill, for his part, isn’t giving up on AI tools, despite the traumatic experience. 

    “I still use ChatGPT in my day-to-day, much like most people use Google on the job,” he told Business Insider. Indeed he has since started a company that provides legal services via AI.

    In a Washington Post piece published on Thursday, Crabill said he would likely use AI tools designed specifically for lawyers to aid in his writing and research.

    He added, “There’s no point in being a naysayer or being against something that is invariably going to become the way of the future.”

    Subscribe to the Eye on AI newsletter to stay abreast of how AI is shaping the future of business. Sign up for free.

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    Steve Mollman

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  • Worldcoin’s future remains uncertain after Sam Altman fired from OpenAI | TechCrunch

    Worldcoin’s future remains uncertain after Sam Altman fired from OpenAI | TechCrunch

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    Sam Altman, the now former CEO of OpenAI, has departed his role and is leaving its board, according to a company post on Friday. But questions about his role at other entities like Worldcoin, the crypto project he co-founded, remain up in the air as its token falls on the news.

    Worldcoin’s token, WLD, fell more than 13% on the day, to $1.91, CoinMarketCap data showed. When asked about Altman’s future at Worldcoin or its plans going forward, Worldcoin did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

    Altman’s crypto project raised $115 million in May in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital. In March, TechCrunch reported Altman was on the board of Worldcoin, but is not involved in the “day-to-day” operations.

    Tip TechCrunch

    Do you work at OpenAI or Worldcoin and know more? Get in touch.

    Worldcoin obtains users by scanning irises through its Orb, which then assigns users an “iris code” or “World ID” that grants users access to the projects’ application and provides them with “a digital passport,” Tiago Sada, head of product for Tools for Humanity and a core contributor to Worldcoin, said on TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast in September. The verification process purportedly allows people to prove their identity, and the iris code is used to make sure they don’t go and get another one.

    In August, Worldcoin faced pushback from countries, including Kenya, which halted the project from scanning any more of its citizens’ eyeballs (and the project ignored initial orders). Worldcoin has faced backlash from critics, who allege the company targets developing economies. The project gives most participants (outside the U.S. and some other countries) 25 WLD tokens, worth roughly $48, in exchange for signing up, which could be seen as exploitative.

    Sada said that giving out the free tokens and going to developing countries was fair because most projects, especially in crypto and tech, focus on emerging markets, as “those are the easier ones to operate in.”

    While OpenAI stated Friday that the board “no longer has confidence in [Altman’s] ability to continue leading” the company, its statement didn’t fully explain why Altman was fired or where he stands with other related organizations, like Worldcoin.

    Worldcoin’s application has over four million downloads and its active users are “more than double” globally, according to a blog post from the beginning of November. There are more than 2.4 million “unique humans” on Worldcoin and in the most recent seven days at the time of writing, about 53,800 new accounts have been made, and there have been over 59,000 daily wallet transactions, according to the company’s website.

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    Jacquelyn Melinek

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  • Hundreds of namesake crypto tokens pop up after Elon Musk announced AI chatbot Grok

    Hundreds of namesake crypto tokens pop up after Elon Musk announced AI chatbot Grok

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    Elon Musk said on Friday that his companies would never create a cryptocurrency, but that hasn’t stopped a surge in interest for tokens with the same name as his latest creation.

    Over the weekend, Musk and X, formerly Twitter, announced Grok, a large-language model built by the Musk-led xAI that’s meant to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. 

    Immediately, the price of XAI, a token with a similar name to the company behind Grok, shot up 175%, before falling back to Earth. The token was trading down 1.6% on Monday morning following the initial excitement.

    Opportunistic crypto traders over the weekend rushed to create more than 400 tokens linked to Grok—some with pictures of Musk—that garnered more than $10 million in market cap, according to CoinDesk.

    In a Friday post on X, Musk tried to clarify his stance on cryptocurrencies, writing: “To be super clear, none of my companies will ever create a crypto token.”

    Anyone can create a cryptocurrency, and major news events often spur the creation of new tokens, although many turn out to be scams. Developers behind at least 10 of the Grok tokens have already rugpulled, leading to about $1 million in losses for those who invested, according to CoinDesk. 

    Musk has in the past supported cryptocurrencies, including the memecoin Dogecoin, whose price often soars when the billionaire mentions it on X. His electric vehicle company Tesla also accepts Dogecoin as payment.

    Although at an event hosted by the Wall Street Journal in May, Musk offered a more cautious approach.

    “I’m not advising anyone to buy crypto or bet the farm on Dogecoin,” he said at the time.

    Learn more about all things crypto with short, easy-to-read lesson cards. Click here for Fortune’s Crypto Crash Course.

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    Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

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  • OpenAI seals deal for San Francisco office space after CEO Sam Altman calls the remote work ‘experiment’ a mistake 

    OpenAI seals deal for San Francisco office space after CEO Sam Altman calls the remote work ‘experiment’ a mistake 

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    Earlier this year at an event in San Francisco, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed the idea that fully remote work could replace the value of in-office collaboration. This week, his surging company signed the largest office lease seen in the city since 2018. 

    In a period of doom and gloom for the commercial real estate sector, hammered by remote work and high vacancy rates in cities across the U.S., the deal offers a dose of hope. And for San Francisco, whose struggles with crime and homelessness have been well documented, it adds to a growing presence of companies involved in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence. 

    Since kickstarting the AI boom with the release of ChatGPT last year, OpenAI has quickly become one the world’s most valuable closely held companies. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that OpenAI is in talks to sell shares an $86 billion valuation, and it reported in August that the company is on track to generate $1 billion in annual revenue.

    OpenAI is leasing two buildings from Uber, which is “right-sizing” its real estate usage, at the ride-hailing company’s headquarters campus in the Mission Bay neighborhood. An Uber spokesperson, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, confirmed that the deal had finally closed. (Since it’s a sublease, landlords had to give their consent, which meant longer negotiations.) OpenAI is taking 486,600 square feet in all in the four-building campus.

    The company did not immediately reply to Fortune’s request for comments.

    As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, office attendance in large cities is still only about half the level seen in 2019. That’s despite a slight uptick recently and tough talk from high-profile CEOs about enforcing return-to-office policies.

    As for San Francisco, it notched a record-high 33.9% office vacancy rate—nearly 30 million square feet listed for lease or sublease—in the third quarter, as reported by the Chronicle. The paper noted that about 150,000 workers could fill all the empty office space.

    The lack of all those employees hurts local businesses, including retailers and restaurants. That combined with crime problem has prompted companies to give up on the city. In August, one of the city’s flagship retailers, Nordstrom, closed its once-vibrant store.

    As the owner of the mall that Nordstrom inhabited noted, “A growing number of retailers and businesses are leaving the area due to the unsafe conditions for customers, retailers, and employees, coupled with the fact that these significant issues are preventing an economic recovery of the area.” 

    The city’s “doom spiral” fears continue, but the move by OpenAI provides a bit of hope. And it helps that this year other AI firms have also leased office space in San Francisco.

    As the Chronicle reported, Hive AI leased 57,117 square feet in a downtown skyscraper next to Salesforce Tower. Hayden AI leased 41,196 square feet, Anthropic leased 17,735, and Tome AI 16,887. (On Friday, Google said that it’s agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic, following Amazon saying it will invest up to $4 billion.)

    That means five AI companies, including OpenAI, are leasing nearly 620,000 square feet of office space in the city. Of course, that’s still a drop in the bucket compared to amount of vacant space. 

    “There’s definitely a lot of hope and optimism that [AI] could be the catalyst for the next growth cycle not only for the office market, but for the San Francisco economy,” Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, told the Chronicle. But it could be years before “we see this growth cycle really explode,” if it does at all, he noted.

    As it turns out, OpenAI’s office deal closed just as another San Francisco tech company ended a return-to-office experiment. Expensify, with a market cap of about $215 million, said this week that it’s closing an upscale office lounge where employees could enjoy champagne or a draft beer while collaborating in a restaurant-style booth or working on laptops at the bar.

    In a blog post this week, Expensify CEO David Barrett described the lounge as an experiment on luring employees back into the office, and he concluded that remote work had won. “We’re just never going back to a regular nine-to-five office culture, a staple of not just our modern culture, but also the foundation of most urban planning,” he wrote. 

    For his part, OpenAI’s Altman—who has become a household name in the tech world and perhaps beyond—stressed the need for in-person collaboration and noted the shortcomings of remote work during a Stripe conference in San Francisco earlier this year. 

    “I think definitely one of the tech industry’s worst mistakes in a long time was that everybody could go full remote forever, and startups didn’t need to be together in person and, you know, there was going to be no loss of creativity,” he told attendees. “I would say that the experiment on that is over, and the technology is not yet good enough that people can be full remote forever, particularly on startups.”

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    Steve Mollman

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  • Catching up with Keith Rabois on the state of VC, his newest bet, and who he’s backing for president | TechCrunch

    Catching up with Keith Rabois on the state of VC, his newest bet, and who he’s backing for president | TechCrunch

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    Chances are that however busy you are, Keith Rabois is busier. He’s an active investor as a general partner at Founders Fund, the early-stage outfit co-founded 18 years ago by Peter Thiel. He’s also the CEO of OpenStore, the company that he co-founded in 2021 to acquire and scale commerce brands on Shopify’s platform. And he has two young children to chase around.

    He’s doing it all of it mostly from Miami, to which he moved roughly three years ago and from where Rabois talked with us recently about a lot of things. Among them was politics (he likes U.S. presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Governor Ron DeSantis, but compared Vivek Ramaswamy’s “foreign policy knowledge” to that of his two-year-old). We also talked about why his venture firm cut its newest fund in half, the deal in the Founders Fund portfolio that seems to have him most excited right now, and what he thinks of Marc Andreessen’s latest manifesto. Excerpts from our chat follow, edited for length and clarity. You can hear our longer conversation here.

    How big a fund are you currently investing?

    That’s a good question because we had announced a large amount that we wound up cutting in half. I don’t remember the official number.

    I was wondering when we might see this kind of thing happen. A million years ago, of course, Accel and some other venture firms reduced the size of their venture fund when the market turned.

    After we had the commitments, and we were proceeding, we realized that there wasn’t a great way to generate venture returns with that size fund in the world we live in.

    How much time are you actually spending at Founders Fund right now, given that you’re not just the co-founder but also the CEO of OpenStore?

    I’m a general partner at Founders Fund. That’s my primary activity in life, finding extraordinary entrepreneurs and giving them the advice, counsel and money so they can achieve their ambitions or increase the probabilities of success. Secondarily, I co-founded a company in Miami has roughly about 130 employees where I serve as CEO. Most of the people at Founders Fund have founded companies successfully. . . Obviously, it helps you generate returns because you have  proprietary deal flow [but also] your advice and counsel is probably more astute and more insightful. The process of actually running a company or building a company allows you to both commiserate with founders but hopefully also be insightful because you’re suffering through the same challenges.

    VCs co-found companies and sometimes run them as CEOs but not forever, typically. Is this a permanent state or will you hand this off to someone in six months?

    There are key milestones or key inflection moments, and when we achieve those goals and it becomes more [about] operational excellence and [less about] innovation and problem solving, maybe we consider a different model. But problem solving and confronting challenges with innovative solutions is something I can do really well.

    Marketplaces have long been interesting to you, of course. You also co-founded Opendoor. The first check from your newest fund went to Traba, which is a jobs marketplace that connects hourly workers with fulfillment centers. Is that right? Why is that interesting?

    Traba connects hourly workers to mostly “light industrial” is the official vertical, which is typically a warehouse and there are ad hoc events — like a major concert, where you need a lot of workers. Light industrials have massive markets — about $50 billion a year — and very few people have built products to serve that industry. Light industrial depends on variable staffing —  40% of all e-commerce occurs during the holiday season, so it doesn’t make sense if you’re running a warehouse to have full-time employees for the entire year. And there are other unique features and value propositions that business customers require in this vertical, and Traba is doing very well at defining it. Then you expand from there.

    You just led Traba’s Series B round, but it also raised a Series A last year led by your former employer, Khosla Ventures, and Founders Fund joined that round.

    Our history with Traba goes back to approximately June of 2021, when we led the seed financing . . .this is the third time  Founders Fund will be investing [and at a] significant increase in valuation, which is pretty rare these days.

    What’s its post-money valuation?

    I don’t know if we’ve disclosed that or not. I would say it’s increased meaningfully —  call it like 40% or more from the prior financing.

    Did you have a preexisting relationship with the founder, Mike Shebat?

    When I moved to Miami, he reached out to me on LinkedIn. At the time, he was still working as a product manager at Uber, but I kind of knew in the back of my brain that he wanted to found a company, so when he did start Traba, we were excited to lead that financing.

    Faire is another marketplace in which you’re involved. It connects indie brands and retailers. You’re on the board. Its valuation soared, too. It was assigned a $7 billion valuation in June of 2021, then suddenly a $12.4 billion valuation later that same year. I saw it raised a $416 million extension round last year, so what happens now? 

    It will be worth tens of billions of dollars. Literally, at YC Demo Day, when they presented, as they finished the presentation, I said, ‘That’s a $100 billion company right there.’ The founders are fantastic, the metrics are great, the market opportunities wonderful, even though most people missed it.

    But is there a down round before it goes public? It’s a tough market right now.

    I don’t think the company will need more capital.

    You probably noticed we did not lead either of those two financings. So other people may have been spending years paying prices that may or may not have made sense, right? But I think at Founders Fund. We were pretty disciplined at [Khosla Ventures] back in my day. My six years there were extremely disciplined. So if the rest of the world wants to lose money as venture capitalists, sometimes it’s in a founder’s interest to take that money, especially if they can parlay that into real traction. But fortunately a company like Faire has really good financials and is performing really well. I doubt we would do another private financing

    Are you doing a lot on the secondary market?

    We do occasionally buy secondary shares, we’re open to it. I wouldn’t say never, but very rarely will we buy secondaries without a massive substantial primary position [first], but we don’t have any aversion to buying a secondary.

    Are you an investor in OpenAI?

    We are. Founders Fund invested in the more recent financing.

    Of secondary shares — employee shares.

    Yeah, they are. It’s an extremely complicated transaction, but yes.

    Is this the round Thrive Capital just led, in a deal that valued the company at a reported $80 billion?

    No, the prior round.

    Last week, Marc Andreessen published his newest manifesto. What did you think of it?

    I mean, it’s directionally interesting. Obviously I believe in the future technology. I’m not one of these techno skeptics or I wouldn’t have been doing venture investing, angel investing or entrepreneurial endeavors for 23 years of my life.

    I don’t think it’s particularly unique in any in any real sense. But I think having a tangible, concrete document to rally people around, to remind people why we do what we do, to remind them that there’s lots of people who believe, is very hopeful actually. Because if you just read the New York Times every day, you’d be very depressed.

    You’re outspoken on the political front. I don’t really care about this personally, but I did see that you were backing Ron DeSantis and now you’re hosting fundraisers for Nikki Haley.

    I love the governor of Florida. We couldn’t be happier here. I think Governor DeSantis is by far the best governor in the country. I am supporting Nikki Haley for President. I think she’s phenomenal. I’ll be super excited when she’s the nominee; if she is, she’ll easily defeat Biden. Like, it’ll be like a landslide. So I’m excited about that. But it’s not a criticism of the governor. We do have restrictions. As you might know, I can’t actually give money to the governor of Florida. We have LPs that are state entities. So there’s very significant restrictions on VCs giving money to state elected officials, meaning even if I wanted to give money to him, I’m legally prohibited from it.

    But you also think she’s got a better shot.

    She is phenomenal.

    What do you think of Vivek Ramaswamy? He’s an entrepreneur. 

    I think he’s a clown. He’s a savvy businessperson, but I don’t think he realizes that politics is real, and it’s very serious and not something you just pick up on a dime. His domestic policy ideas are actually pretty good and directionally correct. Some of his cultural critiques are dead on. But his foreign policy level of knowledge is  literally like my baby. My two-year-old probably has better [sense] than he does. Two months ago at the Republican debate, he proposed defunding Israel, which would have been literally the most catastrophic decision by an American in 50, 60, 70 years. He’s trying to walk that stuff back, but he keeps making silly, uneducated mistakes. He makes Trump look incredibly disciplined and smart, which is, you know, an accomplishment in and of itself.

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    Connie Loizos

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  • Who Is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman? Net Worth, Education | Entrepreneur

    Who Is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman? Net Worth, Education | Entrepreneur

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    In a few short years, Sam Altman has become one of the most influential names in the artificial intelligence movement.

    The 38-year-old is the CEO of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence lab that created and released ChatGPT in November, which is an AI chatbot that produces human-like responses to questions.

    The product launch generated 100 million users in its first two months and sparked competition with others releasing similar products like Google’s Bard. The launch also brought in $17.9 Billion in AI funding in Silicon Valley, according to Bloomberg.

    “I can’t imagine that this would have happened to me,” Altman told Intelligencer about his new role as leader of the artificial intelligence movement.

    Keep scrolling to see more details about Altman’s rise to tech entrepreneurship.

    Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gives a thumbs-up as he departs the closed-door “AI Insight Forum” outside the Kennedy Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on September 13, 2023 in Washington, DC.

    Who Is Sam Altman?

    Sam Altman was born in Chicago in 1985.

    He learned to program and disassemble computers at age 8, according to the New Yorker. He came out as gay when he was 16, and says it was in part due to the help of “transformative” AOL chatrooms.

    Altman attended Stanford in the early aughts but dropped out in 2005 to start Loopt, an app that allowed users to share their location with others, per the Washington Post. He went on to sell the company for $43.4 million to Green Dot in 2012, according to Intelligencer.

    He went on to become the president of Y Combinator, which helps raise money for tech startups in 2014. Prior to stepping on as president, Y Combinator helped raise money for Loopt in the app’s early days, per Intelligencer.

    During his time as president, the company saw 40,000 startup applications each year.

    RELATED: According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, This Is The Skill That Entrepreneurs Must Absolutely Have To Ensure Their Success

    When did Sam Altman start OpenAI?

    Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba. The company started as a non-profit with the goal of creating “a computer that can think like a human in every way and use that for the maximal benefit of humanity.” Additionally, the tech founders wanted to dominate the AI field before the technology was used for ill will, according to Intelligencer.

    Altman became CEO of OpenAI and left Y Combinator in 2019 after Musk walked away from the project in 2018 over fears the company was falling behind Google, per the outlet.

    RELATED: Microsoft Invests Billions in OpenAI, Creator of ChatGPT

    Under Altman’s leadership, the company switched to a for-profit business in 2019, and within a few months, raised $1 billion from Microsoft.

    OpenAI sold its ChatGPT software to businesses before releasing it to the public in November 2022, according to Intelligencer.

    “The exciting parts are almost too long to list,” Altman told Time magazine in June when discussing his product that can do anything from automating mundane tasks to helping with medical diagnoses from a single prompt.

    OpenAI has been subjected to criticism

    While the launch of ChatGPT proved to be a massive success, with 100 million users in the first two months, it has also been met with great pushback.

    Incorporating AI into society has raised questions about intellectual property and one’s right to their name and likeness. It is also a major aspect in the current SAG-AFTRA actors strike with actors fearing they will be replaced by AI, according to Variety. Notable celebrities and influencers have also been speaking out about the possible dangers of AI, including Tom Hanks and MrBeast.

    RELATED: ‘This Is a Serious Problem’: Mr. Beast Slams AI Deepfake Asking Fans to Donate Money to Win a New iPhone

    “The scary part is just sort of putting this lever into the world will for sure have unpredictable consequences,” he added when he spoke to Time.

    The tool has been under fire for generating false information about various individuals, in addition to security concerns following a bug that allowed some users to see other users’ chat history and payment-related information, according to NPR.

    In July, an FTC investigation was launched into the company after allegedly using datasets of copyrighted works to train its models. First reported by the Washington Post, author Michael Chabon filed a class action lawsuit against the company after learning just books were used without his permission to teach ChatGPT.

    Altman is now advocating for government regulation.

    “I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong, and we want to be vocal about that. We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening,” Altman said before a Senate subcommittee while discussing regulating artificial intelligence in May, according to a transcript obtained by NPR. “But we try to be very clear-eyed about what the downside case is and the work that we have to do to mitigate that.”

    What Is Sam Altman’s Net Worth?

    Sam Altman has been keeping his life private, but TheStreet reported that he has a net worth of $500 million.

    Apart from OpenAI, Altman has invested in several other companies in anticipation of the rise of the artificial intelligence industry.

    According to Intelligencer, Altman invested $375 million in nuclear fusion company Helicon Energy, which is building the world’s first fusion power plant to create unlimited clean electricity. As an early investor, he could control one of the world’s cheapest energy sources, per Intelligencer.

    RELATED: Hiring Managers Are Looking for ChatGPT Experience — And Some Are Willing to Pay Up to $800,000 For It

    He also invested $180 million in Retro Biosciences, which is studying how to add ten years to the human lifespan. According to a company press release, it is researching cellular reprogramming and plasma therapies to one day develop “therapeutics eventually capable of multi-disease prevention.”

    In addition to OpenAI, Altman founded Worldcoin, an iris biometric cryptocurrency project, in 2019 and raised $115 million for its development. Worldcoin’s technology would scan people’s irises to link to a crypto wallet and allow Worldcoin to make deposits using one’s iris as a key. This technology could potentially help identify humans from nonhumans as artificial intelligence grows in sophistication.

    Aside from his investments, he spends his earnings racing cars, including a Lexus LFA which could cost upwards of $375,000, according to the Kelley Blue Book.

    He also owns a ranch in Napa with his partner Oliver Mulherin and he purchased a $27 million home in the upscale San Francisco neighborhood Russian Hill.

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    Sam Silverman

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