All over Silicon Valley, phones lit up Friday with the same question: What the heck happened to Sam Altman?

The sudden, mysterious ouster of Altman, CEO of OpenAI, by the company’s board sent shock waves through the tech world and set off a frenetic guessing game about what brought down one of the industry’s biggest stars, at a time when everything seemed to be going his way.

I’ll start by saying: I don’t know all the details about why Altman was pushed out. Neither, it seems, do OpenAI’s shell shocked employees, investors and business partners, many of whom learned of the move at the same time as the public.

AI poster child Sam Altman’s sudden fall from grace has shocked the technology industry. Credit: AP Photo/Eric Risberg

In a blog post Friday, the company said that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications” with the board, but gave no other details.

An all-hands meeting for OpenAI employees Friday afternoon didn’t reveal much more. Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a member of its board, defended the ouster, according to a person briefed on his remarks. He dismissed employees’ suggestions that pushing Altman out amounted to a “hostile takeover” and claimed it was necessary to protect OpenAI’s mission of making artificial intelligence beneficial to humanity, the person said.

Altman appears to have been blindsided, too. He recorded an interview for the podcast I co-host, “Hard Fork,” on Wednesday, two days before his firing. During our chat, he betrayed no hint that anything was amiss, and he talked at length about the success of ChatGPT, his plans for OpenAI and his views on AI’s future.

Altman stayed mum about the precise circumstances of his departure Friday. But Greg Brockman — OpenAI’s co-founder and president, who quit on Friday in solidarity with Altman — released a statement saying that both of them were “shocked and saddened by what the board did today.” Altman was asked to join a video meeting with the board at noon Friday and was immediately fired, Brockman said.

Brad Lightcap, an OpenAI executive, told employees Saturday morning that the company had been talking with the board to “better understand the reason and process behind their decision,” according to an internal message I obtained.

QOSHE - ChatGPT coup: AI poster child Sam Altman’s mysterious ousting - Kevin Roose
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ChatGPT coup: AI poster child Sam Altman’s mysterious ousting

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19.11.2023

All over Silicon Valley, phones lit up Friday with the same question: What the heck happened to Sam Altman?

The sudden, mysterious ouster of Altman, CEO of OpenAI, by the company’s board sent shock waves through the tech world and set off a frenetic guessing game about what brought down one of the industry’s biggest stars, at a time when everything seemed to be going his way.

I’ll start by saying: I don’t know all the details about why Altman was pushed out. Neither, it seems, do OpenAI’s shell shocked employees, investors and business partners, many of whom........

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