OpenAI’s Sam Altman compares his ‘unbelievably painful’ firing to the sudden death of his dad as he reveals new details about the shock termination phone call he received while in a Las Vegas hotel room

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who was recently fired and then quickly rehired, compared his “incredibly painful” firing to the sudden death of his father.

Talking about Trevor Noah Now what? PodcastAltman recounted how he was in a hotel room in Las Vegas for the Grand Prix when he received a call that fired him.

“It was like a dream. I was confused. It was chaotic. It didn’t seem real. Obviously it was… painful. But confusion was just the dominant emotion at that moment. It was like I was in a fog, in a haze.”

Altman said that his dismissal came as a complete shock and that he did not understand what was happening.

He said he believed his dismissal happened in an “unprecedented, crazy way in my opinion.”

Altman said the suddenness of what happened was similar to when his father passed away.

“The only other life experience I’ve had that was much worse, of course, was the death of my father,” Altman told the comedian, which he said was also a “very sudden event.”

“In this case, I felt like I had a little time to just really feel it all, but then there was so much to do, it was so unexpected that I had to pick up the pieces of his life for a while. .

“And it wasn’t until a week after that that I actually had a moment to just catch my breath and think, damn, I can’t believe this happened.” So it was much worse, but there are echoes of the same thing here.”

Half an hour after he was told he had to leave the company, he began receiving so many messages that his smartphone stopped working and froze.

Altman noted that “everyone” called, including Microsoft, which then poached him.

His brief departure sent shockwaves through the company, causing 747 of its 770 employees to threaten to quit and join Microsoft unless Altman, 38, was reinstated.

He started getting messages from people who said they wanted to continue working with him wherever he ended up.

At this stage pgoing back to OpenAI was not an option as he was still trying to chart a path where he was still supporting OpenAI, trying to figure out what was going on.

But just days later, he made a stunning return to OpenAI as CEO.

“You know, I’m still a little bit in shock and a little bit just trying to put the pieces together. When I have time to sit and think about it all, I’ll have a lot more feelings about it,” Altman told Noah.

Founded by Altman and 10 others in 2015, OpenAI launched ChatGPT a year ago, and its ability to mimic human writing has been controversial ever since.

In addition to causing concern among the public, this uncertainty also appears to have been felt within OpenAI’s six-member board of directors.

Elon Musk founded OpenAI with Sam Altman, the company’s CEO, but in 2018 the billionaire tried to take control of the startup.

His request was rejected, forcing him to leave OpenAI and focus on his other projects.

Musk has since attacked the company and said the AI ​​is “woke” and deviating from OpenAI’s original non-profit mission.

“OpenAI was created as a non-profit open source company (that’s why I called it “Open” AI) that served as a counterweight to Google, but it has now become a closed source, profit-maximizing company effectively controlled by Microsoft. “Musk tweeted in February.

On Friday, That Washington Post reported how several senior executives approached OpenAI’s board of directors and accused Altman of psychological abuse and creating chaos at the startup, citing two people familiar with the board’s thinking.

These complaints against Altman were a major factor in the board’s decision to fire him on November 17.

OpenAI’s board of directors initially said Altman was fired because “he was not always forthcoming with the board of directors, which interfered with his ability to perform his duties.”

Later reports suggested that the boardroom upheaval was the result of a clash over technological advances and a dispute between those favoring rapid innovation and a faction more concerned with security.

“It is clear that there has been a real misunderstanding between myself and the board members,” Altman wrote on X after he was brought back to lead the company.

“For our part, it is incredibly important to learn from this experience and apply that knowledge as the company moves forward,” he added.

The new report reveals for the first time senior management complaints about Altman, who is believed to command enormous loyalty within the company’s ranks.

According to the Post, employees complained that Altman was “being psychologically abused,” including accusations that he “pitted employees against each other in unhealthy ways.”

The publication said the complaints resonated with board members who had their own problems with Altman, including some who believed he lied to them as part of a campaign to remove Helen Toner from the board after she published the article. with criticism of OpenAI.

The boardroom coup against Altman was led by OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who was supported by two independent directors: Toner and technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley.

Altman’s ally, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, was also removed from the board as part of the coup.

Faced with pressure from Microsoft and the prospect of a company-wide exodus, the board relented and was reconstituted.

The board now includes former Salesforce executive Bret Taylor as chairman, Lawrence Summers and Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora and the only remaining member of the previous board of directors.

OpenAI’s new board is actively seeking six new members with experience in areas ranging from technology to security to policy. OpenAI investors are unlikely to get a seat on the nonprofit’s board, sources told Reuters.

Microsoft has committed to investing more than $10 billion in OpenAI and owns 49 percent of the company.