Sam Altman joins Microsoft's advanced AI research team after shock firing, and over 70% of OpenAI's employees may follow him

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By Zac Bowden
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Altman joins Microsoft to lead a new AI research team, and over 500 OpenAI employees could join Microsoft as well.

ChatGPT and Microsoft Logo
(Image credit: Daniel Rubino)

What you need to know

  • Microsoft announced that it is hiring Sam Altman, ex-CEO of OpenAI.
  • Altman was fired by OpenAI last week after the board said they had lost confidence in his leadership.
  • Altman will be joined by Greg Brockman to lead a new AI research team at Microsoft.
  • Updated November 20, 2023 at 9:22 AM ET: Altman be the CEO of the new advanced AI research team.
  • Updated November 20, 2023 at 9:36 AM ET: Over 500 OpenAI employees have said that they will leave OpenAI and that "Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced in a post on X that the company is hiring Sam Altman, previously CEO at OpenAI to lead a new AI research team alongside Greg Brockman, co-founder of OpenAI. 

The news comes after a whirlwind weekend of news, which started on Friday when Sam Altman was fired by OpenAI's board of directors. The board says they lost confidence in Altman's leadership, which led to him being fired and Brockman stepping down as president at OpenAI.

Nadella's statement on Microsoft's current partnership with OpenAI, and the hiring of Altman and Brockman said the following:

"We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI's new leadership team and working with them. And we’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success."

OpenAI has appointed two interim CEOs in the last two days after it fired Altman on Friday, starting with Mira Murati, before former Twitch CEO Emmett Sheer took over as OpenAI's interim CEO this morning. OpenAI's board of directors were considering reinstating Altman after it was reported that Microsoft was unhappy with the decision to oust him.

However, it appears the board remains committed to its decision, and has placed Sheer in the CEO chair instead of reinstating Altman. As a result, Microsoft has chosen to hire Altman for their own AI research team, with Brockman joining along with other colleagues.

Microsoft has had a close partnership with Sam Altman since the company began using OpenAI tech in its own services. Microsoft has invested $10 billion in OpenAI over the last couple of years and is planning to continue that partnership even with Altman joining the company. 

OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman's given CEO title

As mentioned above, Altman will "lead a new advanced AI research team," according to Microsoft's CEO. Altman will spearhead those efforts alongside Brockman. Since Nadella's initial announcement of Altman and Brockman joining Microsoft, some other pieces of information have trickled out that give us a glimpse of how big this shift will be.

Since the initial announcement, it was confirmed that Altman will be CEO of the advanced AI research team. Generally, Microsoft reserves CEO roles for those who lead large businesses within the company. For example, Phil Spencer was made Microsoft Gaming CEO in January 2022.

the mission continues

Sam Altman

Altman confirmed that he's joining Microsoft by quoting Nadella and adding "the mission continues." Joining Altman on that mission will be several former OpenAI employees that jumped over to Microsoft alongside Altman and Brockman.

Jakub Pachocki, director of research at OpenAI, will join Microsoft's advanced AI research team. Szymon Sidor, an OpenAI research scientist, and Aleksander Madry, OpenAI's head of preparedness will also join that team, though their roles were not specified.

Brockman expressed excitement about joining Microsoft while listing the initial leadership of the advanced AI team. He alluded to more leadership announcements coming in the future, so we'll update this post as more information becomes available.

Over 500 OpenAI employees may leave for Microsoft

Altman and Brockman will likely be just the first of many OpenAI employees to leave the company and jump over to Microsoft. Wired and journalist Kara Swisher reported on a letter from OpenAI employees telling the company that hundreds of employees may resign if certain actions are not taken.

505 out of OpenAI's 700 employees plan to resign unless all current OpenAI board members resign. The letter also calls for the board appointing two new lead independent directors and the reinstatement of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.

Considering that Altman has already confirmed that he will lead the new advanced AI research group at Microsoft, it appears unlikely that the demands of the OpenAI employees will be met. There's a good chance the letter was written before Altman joined Microsoft and that any hope of retaining the employees is gone.

"Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join," said the employees.

Zac Bowden
Zac Bowden
Senior Editor

Zac Bowden is a Senior Editor at Windows Central. Bringing you exclusive coverage into the world of Windows on PCs, tablets, phones, and more. Also an avid collector of rare Microsoft prototype devices! Keep in touch on Twitter and Threads

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3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • fjtorres5591
    Not good...
    ...for OpenAI...
    GPT is about to be forked.

    They should have remembered the story of now-obscure SPYGLASS.

    With Altman and Brockman and "colleagues" (read: OpenAI staff) moving to Microsoft, we're now looking at MS E3 2.0: embrace, extend, exterminate. The board ousted Altman for moving too fast and embracing the enterprise market with custom GPT models? Well, he was either driving or responding Microsoft's Enterprise CoPilot initiative.

    MS still owns 49% of the revenue generating side of OpenAI and priority access to their IP. The board may want to move slower but MS doesn't so odds are GPT 5 will come from MS Advanced AI first just as Internet Explorer was the first HTML 5.0 browser. That will not be good for OpenAI subscriptions. It wasn't good for Netscape or Mosaic.

    It will, however, be good for MS stock as they are now in full control of the IP of CoPilot's future. And GPT 6 may very well be "MSGPT".
    Reply
  • naddy69
    "Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."

    IOW, this guy is a liar and MS scooped him up.

    So this is Good News? . What could possibly go wrong?
    Reply
  • fjtorres5591
    naddy69 said:
    "Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."

    IOW, this guy is a liar and MS scooped him up.

    So this is Good News? . What could possibly go wrong?
    That is one interpretation.
    There are others.
    The Atlantic has a piece detailing the internal fight at OpenAI between the "doomsters" and the AI techies. Two "tribes" arguing about how fast to commercialize their software. The dysfunction started with the board that lost several outsider members earlier, leaving the "doomsters" in control.
    Another interpretation is that the board doesn't understand the "rules" of silivalley, and want take in investor money but not deliver what the investors are paying for.
    The truth is somewhere in between: OpenAI started as a blue sky, non-profit research operation but when they realize how expensive AI research is, they created a funky "capped profit" subsidiary to take in investor money. MS is the biggest but far from the only one.
    The tension between the blue sky go slow "doomsters" and the startup on the way to an IPO broke the entire operation.

    Note that the guy who orchestrated Altman's exit in the first place is among the 700+ employees threatening to quit.

    So no, the situation is not good.
    Not for Altman, not for MS, not for the staff, not for the investors.
    The board? TBD. They seem to prefer to see their startup dissolve than give up control.

    In the middle of it, Nadela moved (fast!) to secure the access to future (2025+) GPT tech, either from OpenAI or internally. He's since made it clear he doesn't care which.

    Just bear in mind that GPT isn't the only source of generative software for MS products. MS also has access to META's LLAMA and their own inhouse efforts. The mess is limited to OpenAI and MS's exposure is minimal. But annoying, no doubt. Nadela would rather spend his time dealing with other things than a soap opera from what were supposed to be professionals.

    Barring some new disclosure about Altman, the board is looking to be the heavies of the mess.
    Reply