As technology has continued to grow over the years, more and more innovations are being sought out to help people in their everyday lives; Tools are now being used to reduce work times and create new ideas. Nowadays everyone’s minds immediately think towards Chat GPT when they hear someone mention Artificial Intelligence. Chat GPT is a software that takes what the user has inputted and creates a detailed response to create a solution for what the user has asked. AI has created a list of possibilities that people years ago would have never even thought possible, though this rise in technology has unraveled many conflicts behind the benefits.
Open AI is the company that was able to research and release Chat GPT, with Sam Altman as CEO and Greg Brockman as President. They have done exceptionally well due to how popular Chat GPT has become over the past year. Even though Chat GPT’s popularity has increased exponentially, Open AI still remains as a non-profit organization.
With every company, conflicts tend to arise in management. Conflicts can be seen in the Open AI board deciding to fire Sal Altman over his “methods of communications”, which doesn’t really seem like much of a reason to go through with such a drastic change, some may say that there might be more to the reason than they would like to admit. This entire discourse was also shown to the public through “X.com”, where tweets made by Altman mentioning his disappointment with the decision of Open AI and the board. Though all the tweets still painted Open AI as one of the best places he worked at. By firing Sal Altman – creator of Chat GPT, Open AI has faced an immense amount of backlash and retaliation. Over 730 hundred employees at Open AI threatened to leave unless Sam Altman was reinstated. Ironically, there are some innovators who have founded large companies that were faced with the conflicting choice of whether or not to continue in the company they founded. For example Steve Jobs in 1985 faced disagreements with the board of directors and they collectively decided to fire him. Yet 11 years after Jobs was fired, he was asked to return to work for Apple. By returning he created one of the most well-known and profitable companies that can be seen throughout the entire world. To go from firing the creator to asking him to return to build the Apple empire to its greatness is a step that the board of directors hadn’t even thought of.
“Sam Altman was fired & hired in the span of one week, which could be a record time for someone to be hired that fast again”
This coup caused turmoil for the board and left them with an obvious choice of what path to take if they wanted the company to remain stable.
As seen in Apple, OpenAI made the decision to reinstate Sam Altman, unless they wanted to lose the majority of their employees that kept the company afloat.
Not only was Sam Altman reinstated, the company has also decided to select a new board, which is led by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor , former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo. The new board was formed in hopes of not repeating the same mistakes that the previous one had conducted.
Sam Altman was fired & hired in the span of one week, which could be a record time for someone to be hired that fast again. But this shows how much one person can change a company , and the benefits they bring along with them to support this company to reach its best.
O’Brien, Matt. “Sam Altman reinstated as OpenAI CEO with new board replacing the one which fired him.” PBS, 22 November 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/sam-altman-reinstated-as-openai-ceo-with-new-board-replacing-the-one-which-fired-him. Accessed 19 March 2024.
