In the past two days, a sudden corporate infighting has shocked the tech world.。

                

Director executive shock

                       

On November 17, local time, OpenAI's official website suddenly announced a leadership change.。The board said Sam Altman, who served as CEO, will step down and leave the company, and meanwhile, appointed Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati as interim CEO, effective immediately.。The company will continue to look for a long-term successor to the CEO.。

For Altman's departure, the board said it was the result of deliberations.。and said Altman's consistent lack of honesty in his communications with the board hindered the board's ability to perform its duties。The board is no longer confident in his ability to continue leading OpenAI。

The board also said Greg Brockman will step down as chairman of the board and remain in the corporate role, reporting to the CEO.。

According to Brockman's post on X, it can be seen that its dismissal process with Altman took place in just one day。First Altman attended a board meeting that did not include Brockman and was told he was fired, followed by Brockman being told he would be removed from the board.。

In Brockman's post, Ilya, who notified and announced the related dismissal, is OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever。Sutskever, who is a board member, is also believed to be one of the main drivers behind the "removal" of Altman.。

Currently, in addition to Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's board of directors includes Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, Rand's part-time senior management scientist Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, director of strategy at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technologies.。

                       

Surging "public opinion" is also difficult to change the board's decision？

                    

After the board announced Altman's departure, OpenAI employees erupted in discontent with the decision.。After Altman's departure, R & D staff also announced their resignations in protest, including research director Jakub Pachocki and team leader Aleksander Madry, who is responsible for assessing the potential risks of artificial intelligence.。

On November 19, Altman posted a "I love the OpenAI team" post on X, which attracted the support of several OpenAI employees, including interim CEO Mira Murati.。

In addition to the dissatisfaction of internal employees, investors can not sit still。

On November 19, a number of media reported that OpenAI investors also expressed dissatisfaction with the decision of OpenAI's board of directors, including OpenAI's big financier - Microsoft。Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who was "surprised and outraged" to learn of Altman's departure, said he would stay in touch with Altman all the time and promised support whatever steps he took next.。

In addition, some major venture capital supporters, including LinkedIn co-founder and former OpenAI board member Reid Hoffman, may also consider filing a lawsuit against OpenAI's board because none of them received prior notice of the decision to fire Altman.。Vinod Khosla, founder of venture firm Khosla Ventures, said the fund wanted Altman to return to OpenAI, but would support him "whatever he does next."。

While the outside world is talking about this matter, Altman appeared at OpenAI headquarters on November 20.。He posted a photo of himself wearing an OpenAI visitor pass and said "I'm wearing these for the first and last time."。And that seems to be Altman's call to the board: either I stay on the job, or I go.。

While Altman has broad support from internal staff and investors, the board seems to have decided to "get to the bottom of it."。OpenAI's board has reportedly found a new CEO。The new candidate is Emmett Shear, co-founder and former CEO of streaming video site Twitch, who will be named interim CEO of OpenAI。

Shear launched Twitch with Justin Kan in 2006 and sold it to Amazon for nearly $1 billion in 2014.。In March, Shear resigned from Twitch.。

People familiar with the matter said that OpenAI chose Shear because he has the ability to manage large engineering businesses, and he has been very concerned about the potential threat of artificial intelligence, which also gave him points in front of the board.。

OpenAI has found a new CEO and Altman has found a new owner.。On November 20, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will join Microsoft's new advanced AI research team.。

"We are excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and their colleagues will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team."。"We look forward to acting quickly to give them the resources they need to succeed."。"

                

Difficult to reconcile contradictions

                   

It is widely speculated that in this internal struggle of OpenAI, the power struggle is only a superficial phenomenon, and the different concepts of issues such as the commercialization of artificial intelligence are the deeper reasons for this struggle.。

OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit organization with a core mission to ensure that general artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.。In 2019, OpenAI was restructured to ensure the company was able to raise capital to achieve this mission while preserving the nonprofit's mission, governance, and oversight.。

As the CEO of a non-profit organization, Altman is "ambitious" and more commercial.。

Altman has recently traveled to the Middle East to raise funds to create a company focused on artificial intelligence chips, codenamed Tigris, according to people familiar with the project.。Altman hopes new company can make chips that compete with Nvidia。However, people familiar with the matter said that Altman's chip joint venture has not yet been formed, and negotiations with investors are still in the early stages。

Altman is also looking to raise money for a hardware device focused on artificial intelligence, which he developed in collaboration with former Apple design director Jony Ive.。Altman has been in talks with SoftBank, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, Mubadala Investments and others to secure tens of billions of dollars in funding, according to people familiar with the matter.。

Altman's commercial ambitions and OpenAI's original intentions have clearly begun to diverge.。

Ilya Sutskever told a company plenary meeting on Friday that he believes firing Altman is necessary to protect OpenAI's mission of "making artificial intelligence work for humanity."。

From Altman's perspective, raising more capital and expanding the company's revenue stream is crucial.。But some board members who are wary of AI believe that such a rapid commercial expansion would amplify the potential risks of AI.。

Ilya Sutskever, who is considered to be the main driving force behind the "removal" of Altman, is the one who is cautious about artificial intelligence.。

In July, Sutskever assembled a new team within OpenAI to focus on controlling future "super-AI" systems.。According to people familiar with the matter, in October, the clash of ideas caused Sutskever's relationship with Altman to become strained, and Altman's move to cut Sutskever's position at the company at the time exacerbated the conflict between the two and caused Altman's relationship with the company's board to become strained.。

At the November 6 event, Altman said that a customized version of ChatGPT would allow anyone to create chatbots that perform specialized tasks, and OpenAI said that once users create these custom GPTs, they will be allowed to run on their own.。This behavior makes Sutskever feel too aggressive, and that it is a red flag。

The contradiction between the two sides eventually evolved into such a "palace fight drama."。But for now, the "cautious" led by Sutskever has the upper hand on the board.。

While the current palace fight seems to be coming to an end, for a startup, such internal battles are already beginning to show negative effects。

Companies that rely on OpenAI software are rushing to find alternatives, such as Meta's large language model.。Amr Awadallah, CEO of Vectara, said: "As a startup, we are now worried.。Are we going to continue with them or not?？"

Whether to continue using OpenAI or look for alternatives will depend on assurances from the company and Microsoft, Awadallah said.。Awadallah said: "We need Microsoft to speak out and say everything is stable and we will continue to focus on our customers and partners.。We need to hear the words to restore our confidence。"

Rishi Jaluria, a capital markets analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, said this kind of thing could slow down innovation (OpenAI), which is also bad for Microsoft.。