OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is back at the table, or at the boardroom.
OpenAI announced today that Altman will be returning to the company's board of directors, months after he was ousted as OpenAI's CEO.
He will be joined by three new members: Sue Desmond Hellman, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Nicole Seligman, former president of Sony Entertainment, and Fiji Simo, CEO of Instacart. The board of directors now has seven members.
None of the members of the interim board (the board created after Altman's firing in November) will resign as a result of the appointments of Desmond Hellman, Seligman and Simo. Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor (current OpenAI board chairman), Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, and economist and former Harvard University president Larry Summers will remain on the board and will be appointed by Microsoft. Board observer Dee Templeton will also remain on the board. .
The appointment of four new directors and Altman's reappointment come after OpenAI faced criticism for its all-male board and the appointment of Summers, who has a history of making offensive comments toward women. It was conducted. In a letter sent in January, the Congressional Black Caucus warned of the board's lack of diversity and noted the importance of Black perspectives in building tools to mitigate bias in AI.
OpenAI's expanded board of directors is certainly diverse – at least in terms of its background.
Desmond Hellman served as chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for six years, previously served as chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, and before that served as director of product development at Genentech, where he led gene-targeted cancer research. Contributed to the development of therapeutic drugs. Desmond Hellman is a trained oncologist and is board certified in both internal medicine and medical oncology.
Mr. Seligman, a lawyer and corporate director, gained national attention for representing Lt. Col. Oliver North during the Iran-Contra hearings and for representing President Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial. Seligman served as venture capital and general counsel for Sony Corporation, where he was later promoted to CEO and president of Sony Corporation of America.
As for Fidji Simo, before becoming CEO of Instacart, he served as head of the Facebook app at Meta and served as vice president overseeing various video, gaming and monetization efforts at Meta. Mr. Simo also co-founded and currently serves as chairman of the Metrodora Foundation, a clinic and research organization.
“Sue, Fiji, and Nicole have experience leading global organizations and navigating complex regulatory environments, including backgrounds in technology, nonprofits, and board governance,” OpenAI said in a blog post. . “They will work closely with current board members Adam D'Angelo, Larry Summers, Brett Taylor, and Sam and OpenAI's senior management team.”
The expansion of the board and Mr. Altman's return follow an investigation by law firm WilmerHale, commissioned by OpenAI, which found that Mr. Altman's dismissal was a “breakdown in the relationship” between Mr. Altman and his former board of directors. It concluded that the incident was “the result of a loss of trust” and “not a result of any detriment.” concerns regarding product safety and security, the pace of development, OpenAI's finances and its statements; ”
OpenAI said in a blog post that during the investigation, WilmerHale conducted dozens of interviews with the company's former board of directors, current management, advisors and other witnesses, and submitted thousands of documents and other documents. He said he had scrutinized the company's activities. The law firm said the previous board acted within its rights to fire Altman, but his actions did not require him to be fired.
“We unanimously agreed that Sam and [OpenAI president Greg Brockman] They are the right leaders for OpenAI,” Taylor said in a statement. “We recognize the magnitude of our role in stewarding innovative technologies for the benefit of the world.”
Not everyone at OpenAI will agree.
A New York Times report earlier this week painted a picture of a manipulative Altman. This leader was someone who often charmed people by saying what they wanted to hear, supported his decisions, but undermined his credibility when people challenged him. According to the Times, Mira Murati, OpenAI's chief technology officer, and Ilya Sutskeva, a former member of OpenAI's board of directors and the company's chief scientist, criticized Altman's actions before he was fired last year. The company said it has contacted former members of OpenAI's board of directors to express concerns.
In addition to today's board appointments, OpenAI will strengthen its conflict of interest policy, create a whistleblower hotline “to serve as an anonymous reporting resource for all OpenAI employees and contractors,” and add additional board members. The board includes a mission and strategy committee “focused on implementing and advancing OpenAI's core mission.”