OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, was chosen by the firm’s board to replace Sam Altman on an interim basis after his dismissal. Murati did not last long in office after rebelling against Altman’s dismissal. She is the first in a list of employees to sign a letter calling for the resignation of directors and threatening to leave if power is not returned to Altman. If they resign, they can do so in peace. Offers are flooding in. Some companies such as Microsoft (which has already hired Altman), Salesforce and Nvidia have openly communicated their willingness to hire any employee who resigns at OpenAI.
The letter had been signed this Monday night by 738 of the approximately 770 OpenAI employees, more than 95% of the total. It is a full-fledged mutiny, but it is not clear that this is going to rectify the independent directors of OpenAI who have taken control of the company to the detriment of the founders. Their mission is for artificial intelligence to benefit all of humanity and they believe that there is too much risk in developing it in an accelerated manner. They have hired a supporter of stopping it, Emmett Shear, as their new CEO, and they are not accountable to investors or shareholders.
In the employees’ letter there is a revealing phrase addressed to those three independent directors: “You also informed the management team that allowing the destruction of the company would be consistent with the mission,” they say. The letter takes up just over half a page, but with the list of more than 700 signatures, it already stretches to 15 pages.
The harshest paragraph is this: “Their actions have made it clear that they are incapable of overseeing OpenAl. We are unable to work for or with people who lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may choose to opt out of OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary led by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees in this new subsidiary if we decide to join. “We will take this step imminently, unless all current board members resign, and the board appoints two new lead independent directors, including Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.”
Microsoft has made it clear that it is willing to hire OpenAI employees. In some ways, it is almost like buying the company, but without paying for it and without having to submit to the scrutiny of the competition authorities. The announcement of the signing of Altan and Brockman was received positively by investors this Monday. Microsoft shares rose 2% and closed at the highest price in their history. The company is worth 2.8 billion dollars on the stock market.
But the technology giant is not the only one that wants to fish in troubled waters. In a message on social network X, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has said he is willing to match the terms of any OpenAI researchers who leave the company. He has asked them to send the resume directly to his corporate email. The idea is that they join his team called “Salesforce Einstein Trusted Artificial Intelligence.”
Salesforce will match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity OTE to immediately join our Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese. Send me your cv directly to [email protected]. Einstein is the most successful… pic.twitter.com/1RXoc9ekeo
—Marc Benioff (@Benioff) November 20, 2023
Benioff has accompanied the offer with a video of his advertising campaign in the spectacular sphere of Las Vegas during the Formula 1 prize last weekend. He then insisted with another message specifically addressed to those foreign workers of OpenAI who may see their visa and legal status in the United States in jeopardy.
Another who has taken the bait is Jim Fan, artificial intelligence scientist at OpenAI. Through the same social network, He has also asked that the candidates be sent to his email: “My team at Nvidia is hiring. ❤️ to everyone at OpenAI. Engineers, researchers, product team, alike,” he wrote and tried to be empathetic: “If you want an excuse to play games like Minecraft at work: I’m your man. I am impressed by the events. I can only begin to understand the depth of what you must be going through. Please don’t hesitate to write to me if there’s anything I can help you with, or just to say hello and share anything you want to talk about. “I know how to listen.”
Other companies have not shown their assets, but the 15-page list of the names of OpenAI employees is a treasure for any headhunter in the sector. OpenAI workers can resign in peace.
In reality, this Monday there was still a fight to see if Altman’s return was still possible. Added to the pressure from employees is that of investors who have entrusted their money to one of OpenAI’s subsidiaries, which does have a profit motive, although limited. But the control of that subsidiary depends on the non-profit and tax-exempt parent company, governed by that board of directors, which has been reduced to four members. The truth is that OpenAI made it clear that investing in it was a “high-risk” bet. Investors can lose all the money without achieving any return, warns on its website, which goes even further: “It would be prudent to consider any investment in OpenAI Global, LLC in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post artificial general intelligence world.”
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