Why OpenAI? The Case against a Science-Defying Regulatory Reshuffle: Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Benaic

In another rapid-fire reshuffle, OpenAI’s board chose to remove Murati and appoint another interim CEO, Emmett Shear, the former CEO of the video game streaming site Twitch.

An attempt to restore Altman as CEO and replace the board ran into difficulty Sunday over the role of existing directors in choosing their replacements, Bloomberg reported.

Nathan Benaic, the general partner of Air Street Capital and author of the “State of Artificial Intelligence Report”, says Openai’s corporate structure is at odds with the need to support cutting-edge research. “It was an experiment to defy the laws of corporate physics, and it appears that physics won out,” he says.

When Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and other investors formed the startup behind ChatGPT as a US not-for-profit organization in 2015, Altman told Vanity Fair he had very little experience with nonprofits. He said he was not sure how it would go.

Some people who work on work visas tied to Openai say they signed the letter anyway, because that makes it difficult for companies to switch. Boris Power, the head of applied research, wrote that he would lose a research visa if he resigned. These are the details that go with the mission.

The Rise and Fall of OpenAI: CEO Emmett Shear, the Microsoft Founder, and Expat Timing, and the Mission Continuum

Microsoft created a new advanced artificial intelligence research team led by the duo ofBrockman andAlatov a week after it announced it has built its own custom chip that can be used for training large language models. Altman had been reportedly pitching a separate startup to build custom, Nvidia-rivaling AI tensor processing unit (TPU) chips to investors recently, according to The New York Times.

Now Shear takes over OpenAI in a huge shakeup nearly a year after the launch of ChatGPT. Shear thinks OpenAI is one of the most important companies in existence. I went against the board’s wishes and took the role, I didn’t make the decision lightly. Ultimately I felt that I had a duty to help if I could.”

Separately, OpenAI’s board announced it has hired former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear to lead the company, naming him the interim CEO despite calls from some OpenAI investors to bring back Altman.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Altman acknowledged he was joining Microsoft by reposting Nadella with the message “the mission continues.” Nadella responded by providing some hints at how he sees Altman’s role at Microsoft. “We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I’m looking forward to having you do the same.”

Nadella also said Greg Brockman, the former president of OpenAI who quit in protest after Altman’s sudden departure, would be joining the new AI division at Microsoft alongside Altman.

About eight years ago, as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research lab founded by Altman and other people, Openai released the first product that would put the tech industry’s focused on generative intelligence at the forefront.

Microsoft still has a large investment in Openai which is said to be worth $10 billion. Microsoft is the exclusive cloud partner for OpenAI, and Microsoft’s cloud services power all OpenAI workloads across products, API services, and research.

What happened to Benaich after the OpenAI coup? Shared reactions on social media, with a response from an Air Street Capital employee

“Satya now looks like one of the most epic kingmakers,” says Nathan Benaich, founder and general partner at Air Street Capital and author of the State of AI report.

The company’s chief scientist, who is a member of the board, was blamed for coordinating the coup against the company’s CEO.

Nadela appeared to leave the door open to any OpenAI employees eager to jump ship, adding of Altman’s new Microsoft subsidiary: “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”

Shear was one of four cofounders of Justin.tv, launched in 2006. In June 2011, the site moved its gaming content to its new Twitch platform, which soon became the go-to place for video game streaming, with millions of monthly streamers. Amazon bought the company for $1 billion in 2014.

“He’s a typical Silicon Valley engineer type,” says one senior Twitch employee, who worked with Shear for a number of years and spoke on the condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak to the media. “Highly intelligent but socially awkward.” Shear was not the best communicateur, according to a senior employee, but he benefited from a lot of experienced people around him. They say he could be very blunt.

Since the OpenAI board announced the appointment of Shear, several of his old posts on X have been shared on social media. In one, he discussed the prevalence of rape fantasies; in another, he offers that while “Nazis were very evil,” there are scenarios worse than a Nazi takeover. Shear did not immediately respond to a request for comment.