Microsoft has hired former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman. This move comes after Altman was fired from OpenAI, with the board stating they no longer had confidence in his ability to continue leading the organization. Following a weekend of negotiations that failed to reinstate Altman at OpenAI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that both Altman and Brockman would join Microsoft’s new advanced AI research team.
Sam Altman’s departure from OpenAI was quite dramatic. He was fired on a Friday, and there were attempts over the weekend to bring him back, but these efforts were unsuccessful. The OpenAI board refused to step down to allow his return. Following this, Emmett Shear, former Twitch CEO and co-founder, was named as interim CEO of OpenAI, taking over from Mira Murati, who had been the interim CEO after Altman’s firing.
Interestingly, Altman had been involved in pitching custom AI Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips, rivaling Nvidia, to investors. This project, codenamed “Tigris,” had attracted interest from several venture firms and even Microsoft. Now, with Altman and Brockman at Microsoft, they will be part of a team working on advanced AI research. This development comes shortly after Microsoft announced the creation of its own custom AI chip designed to train large language models and potentially reduce reliance on Nvidia.
Microsoft remains a significant investor in OpenAI, with a rumored investment of around $10 billion. The company is also the exclusive cloud partner for OpenAI, with Microsoft’s cloud services powering all OpenAI workloads. Despite the changes in leadership at OpenAI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expressed continued commitment to the partnership with OpenAI and confidence in Microsoft’s product roadmap and ability to innovate.