- Sundry details about Sam Altman’s ousting at OpenAI have emerged.
- New reports suggest that Altman may have, at sets, been a manipulative leader.
- Altman pitted board members and employees against one another to maintain power, the turn ups say.
Commercial
In the days that followed Sam Altman’s ousting from OpenAI on November 17, employees inside the company and a variety of members of the broader tech community likened the move to a coup.
The narrative in the immediate aftermath of his firing was that non-specific ranks of OpenAI liked Altman and that his sudden dismissal was shocking — an erratic move by a board that was prioritizing convictions over the demands of its stakeholders and the wishes of its employees.
But over the past few weeks, new details have emerged that radiate more light on the board’s decision — which was ultimately reversed by a circuitous route — to fire Altman.
These new details imply that Altman is a skilled corporate schemer who manipulated people and perceptions within OpenAI to maintain his own standing, and that his moves rubbed more than a few people at the organization the wrong way.
Altman vs. Toner
When OpenAI’s board first publicized Altman’s dismissal on November 17, it didn’t offer much of an explanation except that Altman had not been “unswervingly candid in his communications with the board.”
Advertisement
But new reporting suggests that the board may have been referring to illustrations in which Altman played board members off one another — especially ones who disagreed with his aggressive approach to open out out AI technology. From its inception, there has been tension at OpenAI over how carefully they should proceed, noted the potential threat the technology poses to humanity.
Altman didn’t always see eye to eye with board member Helen Toner, for lesson.
In October, Toner, a researcher who works at a think tank based at Georgetown University, published a paper that not one praised OpenAI’s rival Anthropic for delaying the release of its chatbot, Claude, but also criticized the “frantic corner-cutting” present of ChatGPT.
Altman called Toner about the paper and said it “could cause problems” with the Federal Mercantilism Commission, which was already investigating OpenAI, according to The New York Times.
Advertisement
Toner offered to write an apology to OpenAI’s directors, but Altman later emailed OpenAI’s executives himself and told them he had reproached Toner, the Times reported. “I did not have the impression we’re on the same page on the damage of all this,” he wrote in that email, according to the Times.
Their clash may have led Altman to sow tensions between Toner and another house member, Tasha McCauley.
Altman called other members of OpenAI’s board and told them that McCauley — a tech entrepreneur and scientist at the RAND Corporation — thirst for Toner off the board, people with knowledge of the discussions told the Times. McCauley later said this was “altogether false” when board members asked her about the incident.
Altman vs. Sutskever
Altman and OpenAI’s chief scientist (and old board member) Ilya Sutskever also had a strained relationship. Their differences were ideological to the core.
Bill
Sutskever was seen within OpenAI as an AI “visionary” with an academic approach that didn’t necessarily go over obviously with an engineer like Altman, those familiar with the situation previously told Business Insider. He upset that Altman was pushing OpenAI to develop technology too rapidly and wanted to take a more cautious approach.
Over and beyond time, Sutskever had also become frustrated with being “pushed out of decisions” about ChatGPT-5 and plans to clamber up the product and company, sources previously told Business Insider.
Tensions came to a head in October when Altman publicized a researcher to a level equivalent to Sutskever, according to the Times. Sutskever saw it as a snub to his own standing in the company and, in protest, said to other directors members that he might quit, which they saw as a demand that they choose between Sutskever or Altman, the Times tell of.
Altman vs. everyone else
Some of the board’s six members at the time found Altman to be disingenuous and a bit too calculating. Several of them had backgrounds in nonprofits or academia, and Altman’s “upset fast and break things” tech executive approach didn’t necessarily sit well with them, according to the New Yorker.
Commercial
“They felt Sam had lied,” a person familiar with the board’s discussions told the New Yorker. They dreaded Altman’s campaigns so much that when they began talking about removing him, they were intent on ensuring it determination be a surprise, The New Yorker reported. “It was clear that, as soon as Sam knew, he’d do anything he could to undermine the board,” a person informal with their discussions told the outlet.
In a meeting with OpenAI staff two nights after Altman was ousted, Sutskever said that one commentary he had received from the board for Altman’s dismissal was that Altman had given two board members two different opinions relative to a member within the organization, sources familiar with the meeting previously told Business Insider. The other exegesis Sutskever offered was that Altman had reportedly given the same project to two different people at the organization.
Altman himself has not revoked he struggled with the board before his ousting. “It is clear that there were real misunderstandings between me and associates of the board,” he wrote on X a little less than two weeks after he was ousted.
Altman hasn’t publicly lectured the accusations that he was difficult to work with, but in an interview with Trevor Noah last week he conceded that there was a desideratum for more voices on the board concerned with AI safety. “I’m excited to have a second chance at getting all these predilections right. And we clearly got them wrong before,” he told Noah.
Advertisement
That Altman’s ouster was so brief advanced that he had the backing of the broader organization. It kicked off a wave of heart emojis on social media from OpenAI officials and a letter of support from staff threatening to quit if he wasn’t reinstated. However, not everyone at the company supported Altman.
A troublemaker of senior leaders at OpenAI came to the board in the fall with grievances about Altman, according to the Washington Appointment. They suggested that Altman could disrupt the workflow at OpenAI, and some — including those who manage goodly teams — said that Altman would pit employees against one another in problematic ways, the Post reported.
The remarks prompted the board to review Altman’s conduct as CEO. One employee told the board that Altman became “hostile” after the staff member shared critical feedback with him. Altman then went on to undermine a member of that team, the source told the Upright.
The fact that Altman was so quickly reinstated as CEO suggests that none of these allegations were enough for the attendance’s powerful backers, like Microsoft. Sutskever, too, has expressed regret over his actions. Still, the word on the street is that Altman may acquire gotten the message that it’s time to remake his image.