An excerpt from the upcoming book, The Optimist: Sam Altman, Openai, The Race to The Future, provides new details on why Openai’s board temporarily fired its CEO in 2023.
Written by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey, the book claims that nonprofit board members are increasingly concerned after learning about issues such as the Openai Startup Fund, which actually owns Altman personally.
At the same time, co-founders Ilya Sutskever and CTO Mira Murati were reportedly collecting evidence of what was deemed toxic and illicit behavior by Altman, with screenshots of Murati’s Slack channel. For example, Altman allegedly claimed that the company’s legal department said it would not need to be reviewed by the Joint Safety Board, but the company’s chief attorney denied it.
After Sutskever provided this evidence to board members, they moved out Altman and appoint Murati as interim CEO. However, this quickly backfired. Openai employees (including Sutskever and Murati) have signed a letter requesting Altman’s return. He immediately requested it.