New board appointments announced as Sam Altman and Greg Brockman return to company management
OpenAI has announced new board appointments following the return of co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman to the company's management. The new board consists of former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
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Microsoft will serve as a non-voting observer on OpenAI's new board. Microsoft had supported the duo throughout the chaos at OpenAI. Commenting on the matter, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he was pleased to see the partnership move a step further.
OpenAI described the new board as the “initial” one and signaled that the number of board members would increase in the future.
In a company blog post, Altman did not neglect to thank the former board, which had led to his firing, for their contributions. He also reappointed Mira Murati as the company's chief technology officer. Murati had served as interim CEO for one day before former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear was announced as CEO.
The chaos at OpenAI led the majority of the company's 800 employees to sign a letter stating they would resign unless Altman and Brockman were reinstated. One of the key signatories was former board member Ilya Sutskever, who played a major role in Altman's dismissal. Sutskever later apologized for his actions and said he regretted his decision. However, despite this, Sutskever was not included in Altman's leadership team list.
In his blog post, Altman wrote, “I love and respect Ilya, I think he is a guiding light of the field and a gem of a human being. I harbor no ill will towards him. While Ilya will no longer serve on the board, we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI.”
As expected, Altman offered the most praise to Brockman. Altman stated that they “co-managed this company with Brockman” and that they would soon formalize this arrangement.