OpenAI’s modest four-person board is under fire for the surprise termination of AI pioneer Sam Altman last week as it reportedly regrets the move and seeks to woo him back after he signed a deal with Microsoft, bringing co-founder Greg Brockman along in tow and leaving hundreds of OpenAI employees threatening to walk.
"This is [a] circus board which, one way or another, its days are numbered. Four people took down a $90 billion company in a black eye for the ages. Either way, Microsoft wins," Dan Ives, analyst for Wedbush Securities told FOX Business on Tuesday.
OpenAI is a nonprofit, according to a description on its website: "We are governed by a nonprofit and our unique capped-profit model drives our commitment to safety."
Still, the company is also a tech startup that has raised billions from investors, including Microsoft, its largest investor, with a stake valued at an estimated $13 billion of the reported $90 billion for the entire enterprise. Microsoft inked a deal with Altman over the weekend following after he was sacked.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, right, speaks as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on during the first OpenAI DevDay conference, Nov. 6, 2023, in San Francisco. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
The board, which is relatively unknown to those outside the tech world, includes chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, who is an independent director, Tasha McCauly, a technology entrepreneur and CEO of GioSim Systems, and Helen Toner, director of strategy and foundational research grants at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), according to OpenAI.
OpenAI’s Board
Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist
Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, independent director
Entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, independent director
Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology’s Helen Toner
Source: OpenAI
D'Angelo, according to Bloomberg, is leading the charge to bring Altman back while Sutskever backtracked on the decision to fire Altman saying on X, formerly known as Twitter, "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company."
Inquiries by FOX Business to OpenAI were not answered as of Tuesday evening.
Over the weekend, interim CEO Mira Murati, appointed Friday to replace Altman, was replaced by Emmett Shear.
Sam Altman, left, and Ilya Sutskever speak at Tel Aviv University in Israel on June 5, 2023. (Jack Guez / AFP / Getty Images)
It could be too late. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is openly trying to recruit angry staffers to join his suite of companies by throwing offers out via X.
"Salesforce and Slack and Tableau will ALL match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity OTE to immediately join our Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research teams under Silvio Savarese," he posted.
Benioff has touted the company's own ‘Einstein Entrusted AI Research’, named after the famed physicist Albert Einstein, which is, according to the company, "grounded in the fabric of our platform."
It's unclear if other companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple, will follow Benioff in his recruiting efforts, regardless, Eric Hippeau of Lerer Hippeau Managing Partners said OpenAI’s talent is the lifeblood of the organization.
Marc Benioff (Ruben Sprich / File / Reuters Photos)
"They're going to go to Microsoft, where Sam is going. So, you could have this potential massive migration of the talent to work with the AI, which, you know, carried the product in their heads. And the value of OpenAI would be zero if that happened. So, it's really in the interest of the OpenAI community that Sam comes back, but that really entails that the current board of the nonprofit leave….Sam will not accept them staying there. So, there's a lot of drama," Hippeau said during an appearance on "The Claman Countdown."