OpenAI, the company that popularized artificial intelligence (AI) with the ChatGPT tool, remains in limbo after the surprise dismissal of its CEO, Sam Altman.
Anyone fantasizes about knowing what they will say at their funeral, what people think about them. Altman, 38 years old and in apparent good physical shape, has managed to enjoy the reality of that fantasy in life.
You should be happy: 95% of employees are willing to follow you wherever you go, whether back to OpenAI, which they were still trying to do, or to another company. SiliconValley enthrones him as a great visionary and the smartest guy in AI. Investors and the market praise him and immediately a technological giant like Microsoft came out that hired him and offered to create a laboratory for him to continue his work.
While OpenAI navigates the chaos, locked in its decision to throw the genie out of the lamp and ratify this measure two days later as something “necessary to preserve the ability of the board to execute its responsibilities and the (altruistic) mission of the organization” , Altman is at the top and Microsoft, the technology giant that came to his rescue, emerges as the big winner of this crisis, according to analysts.
Microsoft is the main shareholder of OpenAI with 13 billion dollars and the unifier of pressure from investors (some intend to file a complaint against OpenAI) for Altman's return to the company in which he participated as one of the founders.
Satya Nadella, top boss of the giant and turned arbiter of this matter, had and has a special preference for Altman's return to OpenAI.
He insisted on his and Microsoft's support for the work of OpenAI, stressing that they maintain their partnership and trust. But he warned that things cannot continue as they have been, with or without Altman.
“At this point, I think it's very clear that something has to change around governance,” Nadella stated. OpenAI emerged in 2015 as a non-profit organization that in 2019 approved the creation of a subsidiary with limited profits to attract investors and be able to pay dividends. This type of power greatly limits commercial capacity and investors do not like that.
Despite indicating that they were continuing the dialogue with the board of directors, Microsoft made the move to sign Altman after observing the resistance of that board upon his return to the company.
Strategically, Microsoft will be able to continue in the short term with the use of OpenAI models to enhance its products. In turn, it offers Altman a work team, with money and computing power to build future models under Microsoft's own umbrella. In the event that the signing is confirmed and a return to OpenAI is definitively ruled out, Altman will also have a double source of talent, that of the exodus of those who follow him after resigning due to his departure and that which already appears in the ranks of the giant. technological.
This move, described as a masterstroke, means that Microsoft occupies the driver's seat in the emerging AI industry, with a clear commitment to development and commercial benefits, above those pessimists who think that, without control, this tool has the potential to extinguish humanity. Emmett Shear, the new interim head of OpenaAI, is one of those who thinks we need to stop.
