95 Percent of OpenAI Employees Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door
ALMOST THE ENTIRE staff of OpenAI has now signed a letter threatening to leave and join a new venture led by ousted CEO, Sam Altman. Some 738 out of its around 770 employees, about 95 percent of the company, are now listed on the letter released early this morning.
The letter calls for Altman and his fellow OpenAI cofounder and close associate Greg Brockman to be reinstated, for the board that fired Altman and removed Brockman from his position as chair to resign, and for new board members to be appointed.
Altman was fired from his position as CEO of OpenAI on Friday. Brockman was removed from his position as chair and quit the company hours later in protest over Altman’s removal. The letter released today states that the board had failed to provide written evidence to justify its decision to remove them from their positions.
Over a dramatic weekend that captivated the tech industry, Altman seemed close to regaining his position and visited the company’s headquarters to discuss the possibility. After negotiations broke down, Microsoft announced that Altman and Brockman would join a new subsidiary to work on AI. OpenAI replaced interim CEO Mira Murati, formerly its CTO, with a new interim, Emmett Shear, formerly leader of Amazon’s Twitch streaming service.
Vinod Khosla, whose venture firm is a major backer of OpenAI, on Monday called for Shear to resign and questioned the legality of the board’s action. Fellow OpenAI investor Joshua Kushner of Thrive Capital said he was supporting the employee-led campaign to reinstate Altman. “Founders deserve to run their own businesses,” he wrote in a post on X. Thrive declined to comment, and Khosla did not respond to requests for comment.
