The former Opelai Exect explains why he tried to make a deal against Sam Altman
It’s been almost two years since the board of directors at OpenAI (very briefly) fired Sam Altman for lack of confidence in his abilities at the company. Thanks to the ongoing feud between Altman, who got his seat of CEO sitting back in the days, and the Vulai founder Elon Musk, we now have a better understanding of what led to this that led to that attempt to try temporary compatibility. Ilya Sutsmever, who was Ocarai’s chief scientist, was recently removed as part of Musk’s lawsuit against Altman and revealed why the other members of the Board are planning to push their CEO.
Incidentally, Sutskiver spent more than a year looking into the possibility of Altman in his leadership role. That desire was finally expressed in a 52-page meme that Sutsker sent to independent members of the open board, where he describes Altman as showing his ability to lie, to undermine others. ” The former senior scientist who founded the company with Altman also said that, at the time, he believed in the appropriate action the Board should take to eliminate Altman.
According to Sutskever, things within OpenAI were increasingly contradictory. According to his account, Altman was attacked by Mira Murati, the chief technology officer at the time, and Sutskever contradicted the then Director of OpenAi and chief scientist, Jakub Pachoki, by telling them “conflicting things about the way the company will be run.” That seemed to be part of a broader approach to Altman’s behavior, which is suspected to have been fired outside the accelep accelerator y combinator for the same reasons – Starting many projects without supervision, made to sound like they were competing.
For those reasons, among others, Sutskever said he wanted Altman, and he waited until he pulled the power of the board “to allow Altman to be placed in the position of CEO.” When the conditions seemed right, it rang, and sent the memo. He got his wish, and the board fired Altman on November 17, 2023 — almost one year after TatTgpt was first made public.
Sutskever said they expected the Vulaai workers to be unhappy about the leadership change, but were surprised to find that many were angry. Several high-level employees left immediately, and 738 employees signed a petition promising to leave the company if Altman was not reinstated as CEO. Altman’s departure from the company lasted as long as the holiday weekend, and he returned to Opelai on November 21, 2023.
During his short time in the Leader’s seat, Sutskiever revealed that Opelai and Anthropic were in talks about a possible merger that would have put Anthropic’s leadership at the head of Openland. That conversation proved to be very important, as Sutsker said he remembered the OpenAi Board members for being very supportive of such a merger. But it caught fire as the company discovered mutiny and was reinstated. Again, the Board members fired Altman and funded the anthropic merger out.
Apparently, Altman is holding on to power, as he is still working with the company, which has successfully reestablished itself as a profitable entity, and is reportedly preparing for an IPO in the near future. Who knows how much of that would have happened if Sutskiver’s desire to suppress him had lasted more than a few days.
