The exit and reinstatement of Sam Altman

From Tokyo, Japan and New Plymouth, New Zealand, this is Down to Business English, with your hosts Skip Montreux and Samantha Vega.

Steve Jobs, Mark Cuban, and J.K. Rowlings. Do you have any idea what they have in common, Samantha?

Steve Jobs, Mark Cuban, and J.K. Rowlands. Steve Jobs it was well, everyone knows who Steve Jobs was. Mark Cuban is a billionaire, entrepreneur, and current owner of the professional basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, and a shark on Shark Tank as well,'cause I watch that a lot on YouTube. Mm-hmm. And uh so they're both successful business people. But JK Rowlings is an author. He wrote the Harry Potter book.

Yeah, they're all rich, they are, or were, in Steve Jobs' case. But they have something else in common too. Each of them, at least once in their lives, were fired from their jobs.

Well you know what they say.

No, I don't know what they say.

Most successful people are fired at least once in their lives.

Really? Who said that?

I think I read it in a business book somewhere.

Well, I don't think I've heard that one before. But there probably is some truth. Have you ever been fired, Samantha?

No, I haven't. And I'm kind of glad about that.

No, I haven't either. But I am reminded of George Carlin's famous quote.

Of George Carlin, which quote?

Uh the quote is that most people Just hard enough not to get fired and get paid. Just enough money not to quit.

Very funny.

Yes and very accurate.

So why all this talk about getting fired?

Because today on Down to Business English, we are going to be reporting on what happened last month to Sam Altman at OpenAI, the makers of Chat GPT.

Ah, yes. That was a big news story. And very strange. He was fired and then rehired in less than a week.

Very unusual stuff and it captivated the business and tech world for over a week.

Sounds like a great topic. Yes.

So let's do it. Let's get D2B down to business with the exit and reinstatement of Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI.

This was a very fast moving story that all went down over the course of five or six days. Why don't we start by going through the timeline of the key developments?

It all started on the evening of Thursday, november sixteenth, when Ilya Sutzkever, one of the co founders of OpenAI, and their chief science officer sent a text message to Sam Altman asking him to join a meeting with the board of directors the next day at noon.

was Ilya and Sam, who are the co founders of OpenAI.

There were actually three co-founders, Sam, Ilya, and Greg Brockman. As co-founders, each of them had positions on the board of directors and held executive suite management positions as well. Altman being the CEO, Brockman the CTO, and Sutzkever the C S O.

That's kind of confusing.

Well, don't worry about that for now. We will touch on the differences later.

Okay, so Ilya asked Sam to join a meeting at noon the next day. Yes.

It was a Google Meet meeting, and to Sam's surprise, when he showed up, Greg Brockman was not there. It was just the other board members and Ilya.

No Brockman? I can see how that might raise some eyebrows. You would think he should be there.

Hm, as he is the chairman of the board, yeah, you would think so. Well, right off the top, Ilya informed Sam that he was being fired and that a public announcement was going to be made very soon. Then, immediately after that, Ilya sent Brockman another Google Meet link to join.

This was a different meeting from the one that Sam was fired in?

That's my understanding, yes. It was a second meeting. Anyway, in that meeting, Brockman was told that he too was being removed from the board, but He was a vital member of the OpenAI Company and would retain his role as Chief Technology Officer.

Wow. Talk about cleaning house. All this happened in rapid succession.

All over the lunch hour apparently.

What happened next?

When Brockman heard that Sam had been fired, well, he immediately resigned from the company. On top of that, three other senior AI researchers submitted their resignations.

What was the board telling the staff about the reasons behind their decision to fire Altman?

In an all hands meeting Friday afternoon, Suskever told employees that Sam's removal was necessary to protect OpenAI's mission of making AI beneficial to humanity.

What does that mean? Was he saying that Altman was leading open AI down a path that was endangering humankind?

It sure sounds like that.

So that's what the board told the staff about Sam's firing. What did OpenAI tell the world about it?

In a press release they did not go into details. But the key takeaway from that release was that the board was grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. But their mission was to ensure artificial intelligence benefited all humanity and that Altman had not been completely honest in communicating to the board, so they could not fulfil their mission.

So let me get this straight. The board fired Sam Altman because they felt he was lying to them about the direction he was taking OpenAI as its CEO?

Yeah, that's about it.

Now we all know that Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI. Were they supportive of the board's decision to remove Altman?

No, they were completely blindsided by their announcement.

How did they react?

On the very same day that Aldman was fired, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, published a statement saying that Microsoft was committed to their partnership with OpenAI and had a long term agreement with them.

but they couldn't have been happy about Sam's firing. Especially if they were not given a heads up.

Not at all. In fact, because Microsoft is so closely tied to OpenAI technology, their stock fell two percent on the news of Altman's firing.

So this all happened on Friday, november seventeenth. What happened next?

Right out of the gate, the board's decision came under intense fire from everyone. The very next day, OpenAICO Brad Lightcap, said that the board's decision took everyone by surprise and that they were trying to get a better understanding of the reasons behind the decision. And investors in OpenEye were very upset and started a pressure campaign to have the board reinstate Altman.

And what about the staff?

Good question. On Monday, November twentieth, the first business day after Altman was let go, over six hundred and fifty of OpenAI's seven hundred and seventy employees signed a letter threatening to quit unless Sam Altman was reinstated and the entire board resigned.

Oh it was a full blown mutiny.

And on top of that, Microsoft announced that both Sam Altman and Greg Brockman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new AI research team. and that the door was open for other OpenAI staff to join Microsoft.

The board must have been feeling a lot of pressure over that.

They were. And then on that very same day, Ilya Sutzkever does a mea culpa.

A Maya Culpa He apologized for firing Altman?

He posted on his ex account, you know, formerly Twitter. that he regretted his decision to remove Altman, and that he would do everything in his power to have him reinstated.

That is an incredible Mia culpa.

It was, and the board had no other alternative to try to bring Altman back.

Which they were able to do.

Yes. On Tuesday, November 20th, OpenAI announced that they had reached an agreement with Sam to return to the company as CEO. And a new board of directors was going to be appointed.

So the board members that pushed Altman out, in the end, all lost their positions.

That's right. The new board would consist of Salesforce CEO Brett Taylor, former US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo. and later in November it was also announced that Microsoft would be given a non voting observer seat on the OpenAI board.

Ah, so they could watch their investment, sure.

I guess so.

What do you make of all this, Skip? Why would the board fire Altman and then fold so quickly when they faced such pushback?

Well, the pushback was too intense for them to go on. If they had stood their ground, they would have lost too much talent and the company would not have lasted much longer.

But why even fire Altman in the first place if his removal was so detrimental to the company's bottom line?

You have to remember that OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit organization. Its purpose was not to make money. But because AI research is so expensive, they had to create a for-profit entity on top of that NPO structure in order to raise capital to fund their research.

I didn't realize that. So it just could be that the board thought that Sam Altman was taking the company in more of a for profit direction rather than an altruistic direction. He was taking care of investors more than taking care of OpenAI's original mission to create AI that was a benefit for humanity.

That is one theory behind all of this, yes.

Okay.

It is.

And it looks like Sam Altman came out the winner.

In fact, Time just announced that Sam Altman is their CEO of the year for 2023.

Is that right? I didn't know that. Who was their person of the year?

Taylor Swift.

Ah, Taylor Swift again. This would be her second time. I wonder what time's reason is this time. I'll have to look into that.

You do that. But in the meantime, a lot of time in here, why don't we get D2V down to

The first item on Down to Vocabulary today is the verb reinstate and its noun form reinstatement.

Ah, good place to start. Both of these word forms are used several times throughout our report.

Reinstatement even appears in the title of today's episode.

It does. The exit and reinstatement of Sam Altman.

To reinstate someone means to return someone to a position or role they previously held. It's often used in professional or organizational contexts.

Our entire report today was about how Sam Altman was reinstated as CEO of OpenAI.

Exactly. And the noun form, reinstatement, refers to the act of reinstating someone. Can you give us another business example using one of these word forms, Skip?

Sure. A colleague of mine recently ended up being linked in jail.

LinkedIn jail LinkedIn banned him from using his account. What did he do?

LinkedIn said one of his favorites. Hosts had broken their community guidelines, but he disagreed and asked LinkedIn to review his case.

What was the outcome of that?

It took a couple of weeks, but in the end, LinkedIn reinstated him on the platform.

Hmm, that's fortunate for him.

Very fortunate. He's a salesperson and depends heavily on LinkedIn to make new contacts.

Been in LinkedIn jail or any social media jail for that matter. It must be stressful. Moving on, what's our next word?

Next up is the phrase in rapid succession. This phrase describes events that happen one after the other in a very short period of time. In a report, after I explained to Samantha the events that took place over the lunch meeting, where Sam Altman was fired and Greg Brockman demoted, She commented how everything had happened in rapid succession.

In other words, I was saying they happened quickly, one after another.

Can you give us a business example using this phrase in rapid succession?

Of course. In the stock market, a company's shares might drop in rapid succession following unexpected news, like a sudden CEO resignation or firing.

That is kind of what happened to Microsoft after Sam Ullman was left. Although OpenAI is not a publicly traded company, Microsoft is. And having invested so much in OpenAI, Microsoft shares price fell 2%. On news of Altman's departure.

What is our next word?

Finally, we have Meya Kalpa.

Meakulpa is a Latin phrase, right?

It is indeed. Meakulpa translates to my fault or my mistake in English. And you can use it when you are admitting a mistake. In our story, I reported that Ilya Sutzkever did a mea culpa about the part he played in Sam Altman's firing.

In other words, he apologized for participating in Altman's dismissal.

Exactly. He said he was sorry. Can you give us a business example?

Do you know LastPass, the password management software?

I do, in fact I use it myself. Couldn't make do without it actually.

Then you were aware of the major security breach they had last year.

Yes, I am. I remember getting emails from them about the breach.

Well, it was a pretty big deal. And the CEO had to issue a mea culpa to their customers because the company failed in such a huge way.

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Thanks for taking us through that timeline of Sam. Exit and reinstatement from OpenAI Skip. It was a very dramatic five days in the tech sector.

My pleasure, Samantha. It was interesting for me to learn about OpenAI's business structure as I research today's story.

It is unique, to say the least.

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Take care.

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