Just when everyone thought everything was settled, OpenAI's palace drama reversed again。

On November 22, OpenAI posted on X that it had agreed in principle on Sam Altman's reinstatement as CEO and that Altman would return to OpenAI as CEO.。

OpenAI also announced a board reorganization.。According to the list, Salesforce's former co-CEO Bret Taylor and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will join the new board, while the original board members retain only Quora's CEO Adam D'Angelo.。

As for Microsoft, which originally intended to receive Altman and other staff, it also expressed understanding for Altman's return。After all, as the biggest financier behind OpenAI, Microsoft needs someone to help it make shareholder-friendly decisions under the current OpenAI decision-making framework, and Altman, known as the "artificial intelligence politician," is the best candidate for this role.。

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he was encouraged by the change in OpenAI's board of directors, adding: "It (the change in the board) is a vital first step to enhance the stability of OpenAI governance."。"

Altman's close comrade, OpenAI co-founder and former president Greg Brockman, will also return to OpenAI with Altman.。Brockman said today's progress has been amazing and we will be stronger and more united than ever before.。He also said that after returning to OpenAI today, coding will begin tonight.。

Altman himself said that he loves OpenAI deeply, and everything he has done in the past few days is to align the team with its mission. "When I decided to join Microsoft on Sunday night, it was obvious that this was the best choice for me and the team.。With the support of the new board and Nadella, I look forward to returning to OpenAI and solidifying our strong partnership with Microsoft. "。"

      

What happened?？

        

If according to the original plan, Altman and Brockman will add Microsoft, jointly lead Microsoft's new artificial intelligence research team。Microsoft has promised to give these two AI leaders all the resources they need to help them succeed at Microsoft.。It has to be said that Microsoft has always been generous in AI research - before Altman left OpenAI, Microsoft had invested more than $13 billion in the company and owned 49% of the company.。

Unexpectedly, dozens of OpenAI announced their resignations that night after the first round of talks for Altman's return to OpenAI failed last Sunday。On Monday, OpenAI employees saw an even bigger wave of defiance。According to statistics, in OpenAI a total of 770 employees, as many as 490 employees issued a joint letter threatening the company's board of directors, unless Altman and Brockman return, they will also leave OpenAI and join Microsoft.。

For Microsoft, these mob acts of OpenAI are simply a gift from heaven.。You know, OpenAI has the world's top AI research army, and their addition would be a huge asset for any company.。As a result, the Microsoft staff who received the news began emergency preparations, temporarily vacated the company's LinkedIn office space in San Francisco, upgraded servers and development equipment, and even urgently mobilized HR staff to ensure that these OpenAI employees could join Microsoft as quickly as possible.。

But for OpenAI, the "defection" of up to 500 employees is unacceptable.。In addition, according to various sources, due to Altman's sudden dismissal, a large number of OpenAI investors are considering suing the company's board of directors.。It can be said that OpenAI's board of directors is facing a rather difficult internal and external situation.。

Forced to do so, the OpenAI board had to ask Altman to negotiate again.。On November 22, people familiar with the matter said that Altman was in talks with at least one board member (possibly D'Angelo) for a second return.。Unlike the first return negotiations, this negotiation also includes investors in some AI startups。It is not known what terms of return Altman proposed in this negotiation, but in the first return negotiation, Altman made it clear that he hoped that "the board (who fired him) would have to leave."。

        

Who forced Altman？

          

Multiple sources show that in this drama, played an important role is OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever (Ilya Sutskever)。Like Altman and Brockman, Suziffer is the co-founder and founder of OpenAI.。

At the beginning of OpenAI, the founders had extremely high demands on the meaning of the company's hosting.。In their view, OpenAI is not just an ordinary start-up company, but a "non-profit organization" dedicated to developing "general artificial intelligence" that can benefit all mankind.。

However, as OpenAI continues to make progress in research and development, the company needs a larger capital investment to ensure that research continues。At this point, OpenAI had to transform itself into a for-profit entity, using a capped profit model.。It is important to note that at this point, even though OpenAI has made profitability a corporate goal, the company is always careful in the pace of commercialization, and the company is still focused on research tasks rather than maximizing profits for investors.。

Later, since Musk left OpenAI and Altman led the company to Microsoft, the path of OpenAI began to slowly change.。Suzkefer and the other directors are basically from a technical background, or do they want to be able to keep the original intention of OpenAI, committed to the benefit of mankind, and attach great importance to the safety of artificial intelligence。

However, Altman is a Silicon Valley businessman, his advantage is that he can rely on his three-inch tongue, for OpenAI to pull one after another sponsorship, as for the safety of artificial intelligence, ethics, and the details of the big model, basically not in his consideration.。As a result, OpenAI began to move further and further away from the originally designed Utopia and gradually joined the commercialization chain of Silicon Valley.。

Arguably, Altman and Suziffe's disagreement over OpenAI's route and goals was the root cause of the break between the two.。

         

What is the future OpenAI board structure?？

           

According to the report, OpenAI's new board of directors is currently composed of three people, namely the above-mentioned Taylor, Summers and D'Angelo.。The only job for this initial board is to review and appoint a new formal board of up to nine people, thereby resetting OpenAI's governance model.。

According to relevant information, Taylor is the current chief technology officer of Meta (formerly Facebook) and co-CEO of Salesforce, who served as chairman of the board of directors before Musk's acquisition of Twitter and is known for co-creating Google Maps (Google Maps); Summers was the U.S. Treasury Secretary during Clinton's tenure and the chairman of the U.S. National Economic Council (National Economic Council) during Obama's tenure, responsible for policy on the U.S. economic recovery after the financial crisis;

In addition, there is news that Microsoft may also have a place on the expanded OpenAI board.。If the news is true, this will be a major shift in the history of OpenAI's development, marking that the management will have an important voice in OpenAI's board of directors.。If nothing else, Altman and Brockman will also join the expanded board.。

From this board structure, we can also see that the failure of the former board conservatives to force the palace not only marks the official removal of OpenAI's ideal coat of non-profit, but also indicates that OpenAI will eventually embark on the road of commercialization of artificial intelligence.。In the ideal and bread, OpenAI finally chose the latter。