The board of directors of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has made the decision to fire its co-founder and CEO, Sam Altman
OpenAI continues to make headlines, but in a surprising way. Sam Altman, the co-founder and CEO, was fired. It’s quite shocking, especially because Sam Altman is the face of OpenAI. According to what the company said, the board of directors made this decision this Friday, November 17, 2023.
According to OpenAI, as we can read on The Verge and on the official OpenAI blog, Sam Altman allegedly lacked clarity and transparency in what he said to the board of directors. They judged that this posed a serious problem for his ability to lead OpenAI. They would have lost confidence in him for the future, which explains the decision to fire him.
What makes this even stranger is that Sam Altman was very active and visible in the company. He was everywhere, especially during big events where OpenAI presented its latest developments regarding GPT and ChatGPT.
Mira Murati takes the reins for now
Until someone is found to replace Altman, Mira Murati, the chief technology officer, is taking over as interim CEO. It’s a bit of a blur for OpenAI, and Mira Murati will have to manage all that while waiting for a new CEO to be chosen.
It should also be noted that on November 8, ChatGPT Plus experienced a major outage. Initially, it was thought to be because of its popularity, but it turned out to be due to a DDoS attack. The chatbot was saturated with pro-Russian hackers determined to bring the service down. OpenAI has also made the decision to temporarily close registrations for ChatGPT Plus.