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After each of his sentences, OpenAI boss Sam Altman took a short break to give the applause due space. Just a few weeks ago, he announced on a stage in San Francisco that ChatGPT had broken the 100 million user mark. A year ago, his start-up’s revolutionary product heralded a new era in the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
Altman also announced at the event that the company would halve the price of the software and launch an AI app store. Both steps should give further impetus to the spread of the innovative technology.
However, his inspiration became clearest weeks later: after the board of directors of OpenAI kicked him out of the door out of the blue. Because the window blast sparked a widespread internal uprising. The majority of employees called for Altman to be reinstated immediately.
Leading figures in the tech scene, from Eric Schmidt to Vinod Khosla, expressed public support. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella immediately offered Altman a new role at the head of an in-house AI research department – with a promise to provide “all the necessary resources for her success”.
The 38-year-old entrepreneur and OpenAI co-founder, who played a key role in establishing the generative AI industry, which is now worth billions, could have suddenly found himself in a position where he would actually have made decisions about the fate of this very business. But things turned out differently: On Wednesday night, Altman announced that he would be returning to OpenAI.
“His superpower is getting people on his side, shaping narratives and influencing situations to work for him,” says a person with direct insight into the negotiations between Altman and the OpenAI board. “That makes it impossible to control him.”
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