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OpenAI staff threaten to quit and join Altman, demand for the board’s resignation

OpenAI’s staff on Monday threatened to quit the artificial intelligence (AI) startup and join former boss Sam Altman at Microsoft’s new division unless the board resigned. Revolting OpenAI employees stated that were “unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees”. 

Apart from Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Chief Data Scientist Ilya Sutskever and Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, about 500 members of OpenAI’s staff said that they would resign.

Microsoft, in the meanwhile, emerged as the big winner of the upheaval at OpenAI, hiring ousted CEO Sam Altman and other key staff of the startup. The appointments were aimed at averting a potential flight to rivals and helping deepen its lead in the AI race.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.   

Earlier in the day, OpenAI’s board hired former Twitch chief Emmett Shear as interim chief executive officer, defying calls from investors to reinstate Mr Altman. Mr Shear succeeded Ms Murati, who had publicly aligned herself with Mr Altman. This marked the third change in the leadership within three days.   

Microsoft hit a new all-time high after the software giant hired Mr Altman and another OpenAI Co-Founder Greg Brockman to lead its new in-house advanced AI research team. Its shares had edged lower on Friday after Mr Altman’s shock exit from the creator of ChatGPT, but they recovered on Monday, rising by 1.9 per cent, as analysts noted that they don’t see the firing affecting the OpenAI-Microsoft relationship and said that they were positive about Mr Altman’s new role at the Windows software-maker. 

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