Microsoft, the creator of the Windows operating system and one of the largest investors in OpenAI, is hiring Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Following a deliberate review process by OpenAI’s board, Altman was fired from the position of CEO last Friday. Shortly after, Brockman resigned from his position of chairman, along with several top researchers at the company. Even though several reports over the weekend claimed that OpenAI is in talks with Altman and could bring back its CEO, Microsoft’s hiring of Altman and Brockman, two co-founders of OpenAI, is a big move.
Nadella Announces The Hiring Of Altman And Brockman
In a tweet from his official X (formerly known as Twitter) account, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella announced, “Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.” Nadella added that Microsoft looks forward to “moving quickly to provide them [Altman and Brockman] with the resources needed for their success.” Following this, Altman reposted the tweet from his account, saying, “The mission continues.”
Another tweet from Nadella reveals that Altman is joining Microsoft as the CEO of the new AI research team, which remains unnamed at the moment. “We’ve learned a lot over the year about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft,” added Nadella. The hiring comes a few hours after OpenAI’s negotiations failed to bring Altman back to his original role after pressure from investors.
What’s Happening At OpenAI?
Earlier, OpenAI fired Altman and appointed Mira Murati as the interim CEO of the company. However, according to a report by The Verge, the board has now decided to name Emmett Shear, the former Twitch CEO, as the interim CEO. Although the company hasn’t confirmed the new appointment, it could do so within the next few days, given that there seems to be no way to bring back Altman.
Apparently, the four-person board at OpenAI refused to step down as part of bringing back Altman. Per The Information, OpenAI employees were told on Sunday that removing Altman was the “only path” to achieve the company’s goal of creating “broadly beneficial” artificial general intelligence.
Microsoft Had Shown Interest In Altman’s Ideas Of Creating A New TPU
Before being fired from OpenAI, Sam was reportedly pitching a custom AI Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) to investors, reported the New York Times. The project, codenamed “Tigris,” turned many heads among venture firms and some interest from Microsoft, reported Bloomberg. Amidst the chaos, the Nadella-headed firm remains committed to its partnership with OpenAI, as it reportedly invested about $10 billion.
It will be interesting to see what follows, especially what Altman does with his team and Microsoft’s resources in his new role as the advanced AI research team CEO.
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