Speaker 1: In the fall of twenty twenty three, Sam Altman was
Speaker 1: more powerful than he'd ever been. He and his armies
Speaker 1: of researchers had conquered new frontiers of technology and reaped
Speaker 1: the financial rewards. He had defeated those who challenged his power.
Speaker 1: Like Elon Musk, his dominance was cemented, or so it seemed.
Speaker 1: Though he occupied the throne, there was in fact a
Speaker 1: powerful and mysterious board that governed him. They had the
Speaker 1: ability to fire him, to dissolve the whole company if
Speaker 1: they saw fit. On this board there were six people,
Speaker 1: and one of them was a woman named Helen Toner.
Speaker 1: She was a researcher who studied AI systems, and you
Speaker 1: can hear her passion here on the TED stage.
Speaker 2: AI is already all around us, so we can't just
Speaker 2: sit around and wait for things to become clearer.
Speaker 1: In October, we're twenty twenty three, Helen co authored a
Speaker 1: paper about various companies in the AI industry. As a researcher,
Speaker 1: Helen published lots of papers, but this one was not
Speaker 1: like the rest, because this one mentioned open AI and
Speaker 1: it wasn't fully complementary. Here's my colleague, Sharene Gafari.
Speaker 3: Toward the end of this document, they contrast open Ai
Speaker 3: with a big competitor.
Speaker 1: The competitor is Anthropic, the rival company started by former
Speaker 1: open Ai employees, so it was a bit of a
Speaker 1: sensitive subject.
Speaker 3: And in part of that paper, basically they say that
Speaker 3: Anthropic was more safe and contrasts that with the release
Speaker 3: of open AI's chat GPT. You could read parts of
Speaker 3: it as sort of shining up Anthropic as a better
Speaker 3: model or example of how to be safe in terms
Speaker 3: of how it's releasing its Ai models.
Speaker 1: Now, Helen's paper only mentioned open Ai and Nthropic briefly,
Speaker 1: and it's overall pretty benign comment, but Sam didn't like it.
Speaker 1: He was upset. According to our reporting, Sam started back channeling,
Speaker 1: talking to one board member then another to try to
Speaker 1: gain their support to vote Helen out. He would approach
Speaker 1: someone and say this other person agrees with me, when
Speaker 1: sometimes that wasn't the case. A source told us that
Speaker 1: at one point he said that a board member had
Speaker 1: said Helen's obviously got to go, when in fact that
Speaker 1: board member was on Helen's side.
Speaker 2: Sam started lying to other board members in order to
Speaker 2: try and push me off the board. We were already
Speaker 2: talking pretty seriously about whether we needed to fire him
Speaker 2: after years of this kind of thing. All four of
Speaker 2: us who fired him came to the conclusion that we
Speaker 2: just couldn't believe things that Sam was telling us.
Speaker 1: That's Helen on the ted Ai show about six months
Speaker 1: after this all went down. This is the first time
Speaker 1: she publicly and unambiguously accused Sam of lying. She said
Speaker 1: that the board saw through his tactics and it pushed
Speaker 1: them to take dramatic action. By the way, we did
Speaker 1: talk to an Open AYE spokesperson about Sam's alleged back channeling.
Speaker 1: They told us that this account significantly differs from Sam's
Speaker 1: recollection of these conversations, and they did not respond to
Speaker 1: a list of questions that we sent them about this episode. Overall,
Speaker 1: here's my colleague Rachel Metz.
Speaker 4: Sam's trying to get them to remove Helen from the board,
Speaker 4: but the board members feel like they're being manipulated and
Speaker 4: perhaps hearing different people hearing different things. In the end,
Speaker 4: instead of getting rid of Helen, the board decides to
Speaker 4: get rid of Sam.
Speaker 1: What happened with Helen's paper wasn't an isolated incident. It
Speaker 1: was part of a bigger pattern of Sam's behavior. According
Speaker 1: to our reporting, the board members had lost trust in
Speaker 1: him over time. Helen says in the interview that Sam
Speaker 1: had a habit of misrepresenting and withholding information, even outright lining,
Speaker 1: which made it difficult for the board to do its job.
Speaker 1: That job is to uphold the mission of open AI,
Speaker 1: to ensure that advanced AI benefits all of humanity. And
Speaker 1: the board members were starting to believe Sam was a
Speaker 1: threat to that mission, so they start turning on Sam.
Speaker 1: In particular, one very important, very surprising board member goes
Speaker 1: behind Sam's back, Ilia sitt Skiver. Ilia one of Sam's
Speaker 1: co founders. He had been there from day one, and
Speaker 1: he was the AI researcher driving much of open AI's
Speaker 1: technological progress. In fact, when Elon Musk goes on CNBC
Speaker 1: to boast about his own role at open AI, he
Speaker 1: name checks Ilia.
Speaker 5: I am the reason OpenAI exists. I was instrumental in
Speaker 5: cruiting the key scientists and engineers, most specifically, most notably
Speaker 5: Ilia Soskayer, and ultimately decided to join opening And really,
Speaker 5: Ilia joining was the was the lynchmann for Opening I
Speaker 5: being ultimately successful.
Speaker 6: You're very disappointed.
Speaker 1: Ilia and Helen talked and two of the other board
Speaker 1: members joined these conversations as well, and together they came
Speaker 1: up with a secret plan. They would ambush Sam and
Speaker 1: remove him from power for the good of humanity. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Foundering. I'm your host Ellen Hewitt. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: our final one for this series, will take you inside
Speaker 1: the events that rocked open Ai last November. We'll cover
Speaker 1: how Sam Altman was thrown out of his own company
Speaker 1: and the series of chaotic events that followed. It's a
Speaker 1: five day white knuckle boardroom drama, shock, betrayal, midnight negotiations.
Speaker 1: You may think you know the story of the open
Speaker 1: Ai coup, but will help you understand what happened behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, how it all played out, and what it
Speaker 1: says about Sam. The board members saw Sam as deceptive
Speaker 1: and manipulative. In this episode, we'll dive into that question ourselves.
Speaker 1: When Sam says something, can we trust it? We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. Sam has always emphasized that it's very, very
Speaker 1: important that he be able to be fired. As an example,
Speaker 1: he set it in front of his employees at an
Speaker 1: all hands meeting in twenty nineteen. Here's Reid Hoffman, the
Speaker 1: co founder of LinkedIn and a famous venture capitalist. He
Speaker 1: had recently joined the Open Ai board, and Sam brought
Speaker 1: him up to talk on stage.
Speaker 6: He ambushed me with the following question, which is, what
Speaker 6: will you do if I'm not doing my job? And
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, I've never been asked this by
Speaker 6: a CEO in front of a company all hands before.
Speaker 6: This is the internal thought track. I was like, well,
Speaker 6: I'll help you, right, because like, oh, help you do
Speaker 6: the job the right ways, you know, because I'm like,
Speaker 6: what the hell, Sam, what you're asking me this question?
Speaker 6: And he said no, no, okay, say that doesn't work and
Speaker 6: I'm still not doing my job.
Speaker 7: What do you do?
Speaker 6: I'm like, well, okay, I fire you, like we get
Speaker 6: a new CEO. And he's like, okay, great, And I
Speaker 6: was like, okay, Like, never been asked by a CEO
Speaker 6: in front of the entire company whether or not I
Speaker 6: would fire them if they weren't doing the job.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's refreshing. A CEO who wants to be held accountable,
Speaker 1: A CEO who wants to be fireable. What a principled guy.
Speaker 1: It makes you do a double take. On his media
Speaker 1: tour in twenty twenty three, after the success of Chat GPT,
Speaker 1: Sam makes this point not just to his employees but
Speaker 1: to the world. In speech after speech, he emphasizes just
Speaker 1: how fiable he is and how good that is. He
Speaker 1: told an interviewer, I serve at the pleasure of the board.
Speaker 1: I do this the old fashioned way. Or the board
Speaker 1: can just decide to replace the CEO, he said at
Speaker 1: a Bloomberg conference.
Speaker 8: The board can fire me. I think that's important.
Speaker 1: The board can fire me. The board can replace me
Speaker 1: whenever they want. It sounds so humble. He had made
Speaker 1: this a part of his brand, and I think it's
Speaker 1: meant to convey that open ai is a different kind
Speaker 1: of company and he is a different kind of CEO.
Speaker 1: There's another way that Sam signals his good intentions. Here
Speaker 1: he doesn't own any equity in open Ai. This is unusual.
Speaker 1: Most startup founders own a big slice of their company.
Speaker 1: If the company becomes really valuable, that means the founder
Speaker 1: gets rich. Sam originally didn't take equity because of a
Speaker 1: specific rule related to open ai being a nonprofit. Then
Speaker 1: he just didn't take any more. Here he is with
Speaker 1: my colleague Emily Chang.
Speaker 9: So to be clear, like if open ai, you know,
Speaker 9: is massively profitable, you won't benefit financially.
Speaker 8: One of the takeaways I've learned from questions like this
Speaker 8: is that this like concept of having enough money is
Speaker 8: not something that is easy to get across to other people.
Speaker 9: It's hard for people to understand.
Speaker 8: But I like, I have enough money.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make The thing is Sam's already rich, He's
Speaker 1: a billionaire from his startup investments. But he often makes
Speaker 1: this point that he has no equity, that he's not
Speaker 1: doing open Ai for the money. It's another way for
Speaker 1: Sam to make himself sound non threatening. He uses it
Speaker 1: to earn our trust by suggesting he can occupy this
Speaker 1: very powerful position while remaining pure of heart. To his credit,
Speaker 1: I think he's being somewhat earnest here. He's acknowledging that
Speaker 1: he has a lot of money already and will make
Speaker 1: lots more Separate from open Ai. Focusing on money is
Speaker 1: a bit of a distraction, though. Even if Sam isn't
Speaker 1: driven by money, he can still be hungry for other
Speaker 1: perks that come with running open Ai. Power, fame, influence. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: this story picks up in November twenty twenty three. Sam
Speaker 1: is at the peak of his game. His company is
Speaker 1: valued at eighty six billion dollars. Open ai just held
Speaker 1: its first Developer's Day.
Speaker 10: Please welcome to the stage, Sam Altman.
Speaker 8: Good morning, Welcome to our first ever open Ai dev Day.
Speaker 8: We're thrilled that you're here and this energy is awesome.
Speaker 1: Month Sam is speaking at APEC, an international conference where
Speaker 1: world leaders are gathered in San Francisco. It's a Thursday evening.
Speaker 1: He steps off the stage, then zips over to Oakland
Speaker 1: to a warehouse that's associated with a burning Man Camp.
Speaker 1: He gives another interview, this time in front of a
Speaker 1: bunch of artists.
Speaker 8: That desire to connect, that desire to know the human
Speaker 8: behind it and be part of that community. I think,
Speaker 8: in like a wash in a sea of tons of
Speaker 8: machine generated art, debt, desire for the human connection will
Speaker 8: go up.
Speaker 11: Knock down.
Speaker 1: Sam's telling the artists that AI will actually be great
Speaker 1: for them. That night, Sam got a text from Ilia
Speaker 1: asking if they could talk the following day, Friday, at noon,
Speaker 1: Sam agreed he had no reason to believe anything was wrong.
Speaker 1: Next Sam flew to Las Vegas. According to the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, he was hoping to catch a Formula one
Speaker 1: race that weekend. He's really into race cars and owns
Speaker 1: two McLaren's himself. So on Friday, he's in Vegas. At noon,
Speaker 1: Sam clicked on a link to a Google meet. He
Speaker 1: was met with four board members of open ai, including
Speaker 1: Ilia and Helen. It was almost the entire board, but
Speaker 1: one person was missing, Greg Brockman, president of open Ai,
Speaker 1: Sam's co founder and his closest ally. The board didn't
Speaker 1: need Greg to be there. They already had four votes
Speaker 1: out of six. Ilia delivered the news, Sam, You're fired.
Speaker 1: Sam was as shocked as anyone. The call was short.
Speaker 1: At twelve nineteen, Ilia texted Greg asking to talk. At
Speaker 1: twelve twenty three, Greg also clicked on a Google meet link.
Speaker 1: They told Greg that he was being removed from the
Speaker 1: board and that Sam was out. Things were kicking into
Speaker 1: action fast. Open Ai published a blog post. It said
Speaker 1: that the board had done a review and decided to
Speaker 1: remove Sam because he was quote not consistently candid in
Speaker 1: his communications with the board, and they added the board
Speaker 1: no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading
Speaker 1: open Ai. Here's my colleague, Rachel Metz.
Speaker 4: The first few lines of it, I didn't really understand
Speaker 4: what was happening, and it took me a few seconds
Speaker 4: to have that oh shit, mom.
Speaker 12: L oh, we need to get back to some big
Speaker 12: break you news that just crossed the wire, learning that
Speaker 12: Sam Altman is leaving Open AI and we now have
Speaker 12: a few more details on this. We're learning that the
Speaker 12: decision was not voluntary.
Speaker 3: At the point.
Speaker 1: And here's my colleague Sharen.
Speaker 3: This was one of the moments that I feel like
Speaker 3: will be a shocking news moment of my career for
Speaker 3: a business tech story. This is about as dramatic as
Speaker 3: it gets.
Speaker 1: The most surprising part of this was that a major
Speaker 1: force behind this coup seemed to be Ilia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean Ilia plays a key role in
Speaker 3: this whole ouster. He is the brutus to Sam Caesar
Speaker 3: and this is a huge betrayal. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: the guy that's been working side by side with Sam
Speaker 3: with Greg Brockmann, right and they're riding high at the
Speaker 3: peak of their success right now. They should be a
Speaker 3: happy trio.
Speaker 5: Like.
Speaker 3: It's just sort of a complete dissolution of what from
Speaker 3: the outside looked like such a successful.
Speaker 1: Partnership at two Ilia. We can't know what was going
Speaker 1: on inside Ilia's head at that moment, but think about
Speaker 1: the enormity of this all the board had planned this
Speaker 1: in total secrecy because they suspected Sam might outmaneuver them
Speaker 1: if he knew. They hadn't even told Microsoft until a
Speaker 1: few minutes before they told Sam. They decided it had
Speaker 1: to be cloak and dagger, an ambush, a stabbing at
Speaker 1: the Senate. Ilia was also turning his back on Greg Brockman.
Speaker 1: Greg was a staunch ally of Sam, so the board
Speaker 1: had excluded him from their meetings about this plan, and
Speaker 1: they booted him from the board. For Ilia, this had
Speaker 1: to feel heavy. He and Greg had been close back
Speaker 1: in the early idealistic days of open Ai. It was
Speaker 1: the two of them running things, Greg chugging away at
Speaker 1: the business and Ilia dreaming up their research projects. I
Speaker 1: mean Ilia had officiated Greg's wedding. Now that relationship was severed.
Speaker 1: Right after the blog post went out, Greg tweeted that
Speaker 1: he was resigning from open ai in solidarity with Sam.
Speaker 1: The board announced that the interim CEO was Mira Murradi,
Speaker 1: an open Ai executive, on Friday afternoon. Then well into
Speaker 1: the night, reporters were calling, texting, talking to sources trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what the hell was going on. Here's
Speaker 1: Sharene and Rachel again.
Speaker 3: I was a scramble to figure out, well, why are
Speaker 3: you saying that he's lied, and if so.
Speaker 1: What did he lie about?
Speaker 4: The board statement was so brief and so vague that
Speaker 4: it left all this room open for speculation.
Speaker 1: Everyone was obsessed with one phrase from the memo, not
Speaker 1: consistently candid. The board was all but saying that Sam
Speaker 1: had been a sneaky liar, but they were also vague
Speaker 1: about the details. Reporters weren't the only people who jumped
Speaker 1: on this. A former open ai employee named Jeffrey Irving
Speaker 1: tweeted that although Sam was always nice to him, he
Speaker 1: lied to him on various occasions too, and he said
Speaker 1: that Sam was deceptive and manipulative to others that he knew.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey didn't respond when we asked him to clarify. The Internet,
Speaker 1: especially Twitter, flooded with theories about why Sam had been fired.
Speaker 1: Many of them were completely speculative. Had Ilia glimpsed some
Speaker 1: kind of advanced AGI internally and freaked out and wanted
Speaker 1: to hit a kill switch? The question became a meme
Speaker 1: on social media. What did Ilia see? Anyway? While everyone
Speaker 1: was trying to answer that, the weekend descended into chaos
Speaker 1: On Friday, Sam and Greg thought they were just going
Speaker 1: to pack up and start a new company, I guess,
Speaker 1: and Open AI's board members were looking for a permanent
Speaker 1: CEO to take over. But on Saturday, a new idea
Speaker 1: came into the picture that Sam should come back. Investors
Speaker 1: and employees started pressuring the remaining board members to undo
Speaker 1: their decision and reinstate Sam.
Speaker 13: Back to the open AI story. It is still the
Speaker 13: top story. What is happening within open AI HQ three
Speaker 13: miles from where I'm standing? Is Sam Altman coming back?
Speaker 9: On not?
Speaker 3: I'm parked hoodside of open Aey's offices on Sunday with
Speaker 3: a handful of other AI reporters trying to see you know,
Speaker 3: Sam's reportedly in the open a office negotiating a comeback.
Speaker 3: So I go there. I'm like, you know, hanging out outside.
Speaker 3: I'm like looking, can we see Sam coming out or leaving?
Speaker 4: And like waiting for a new pope to be named?
Speaker 4: You know, you're waiting for the smoke signal to come up.
Speaker 3: Totally, it was like waiting for a smoke signal from
Speaker 3: the pope.
Speaker 1: The twists kept coming on Sunday night.
Speaker 9: The situation it just continues to unfold, and it's chaotic.
Speaker 9: Certainly has been for the last few days of boardroom
Speaker 9: coup investors pushing for Altman's return.
Speaker 13: Okay, fast forward to present day. This is the latest.
Speaker 13: After a game of musical chairs, Microsoft announces that Altman
Speaker 13: and his co founder Greg Brockman will join Microsoft. This
Speaker 13: announce on literally on the heels of a frenetic weekend
Speaker 13: in Silicon Valley following the aftermath of Altman's firing on Friday, Microsoft.
Speaker 1: Shads in addition to hiring Sam and Greg, Microsoft actually
Speaker 1: offers to hire any open ai employee who wants to
Speaker 1: leave to join them. At the same time, the open
Speaker 1: ai board has stayed firm even as talks were progressing
Speaker 1: about maybe bringing Sam back. The board made a new
Speaker 1: announcement late Sunday.
Speaker 5: Emmitt Sheer was appointed interim CEO of open Ai after
Speaker 5: the board quietly vetted candidates starting on Saturday night.
Speaker 1: Emmett Sheer the co founder of Twitch. The board had
Speaker 1: been scrambling to find an interim CEO, and this is
Speaker 1: who they got. Emmett was a funny choice for a
Speaker 1: couple reasons. He was actually one of the other founders
Speaker 1: in that very first batch of y combinator with Sam
Speaker 1: almost twenty years earlier, and he has also said publicly
Speaker 1: that he worries a lot about AI going rogue and
Speaker 1: destroying the world. You can hear a mix of confidence
Speaker 1: and fear in his voice on the Logan Bartlett podcast
Speaker 1: when he talked in twenty twenty three about super intelligent AI, and.
Speaker 7: That kind of intelligence is just an intrinsically very dangerous
Speaker 7: thing because intelligence is power. Human beings are the dominant
Speaker 7: form of life on this planet pretty much entirely because
Speaker 7: we're more smarter than the other creatures. It's like a
Speaker 7: universe destroying bomb. Like this is not a figure it
Speaker 7: out later thing. This is like a big problem Southern Manhattan, Miami.
Speaker 1: Amidst all of this, things were getting really heated for Ilia.
Speaker 1: Of the four board members who voted to remove Sam,
Speaker 1: he's the only one who works at Open AI. He's
Speaker 1: there alongside other employees, so he was experiencing the decision
Speaker 1: in a much more direct way than anyone else on
Speaker 1: the board.
Speaker 3: I think within the company also, you see a confusion
Speaker 3: as to Ilia's motivations, you know, and I knew We're
Speaker 3: hearing that sort of staff are bewildered or confused like
Speaker 3: why did Ilia do this? And that if he has
Speaker 3: a good reason that why doesn't he come out and
Speaker 3: say it. Ilia is a very visible, well known and
Speaker 3: previously seemingly well liked person at open Ai, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, you know, you have staff feeling like
Speaker 3: who is this guy? Like why did he turn on Sam?
Speaker 3: And why did he sort of screw our company? Or
Speaker 3: and why did he you know, put us in this position?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Open Ai employees were confused and starting to get angry.
Speaker 1: They were rapidly souring on the board, including Ilia. On Sunday,
Speaker 1: Ilia invited open Ai employees to an all hands meeting.
Speaker 3: And basically no one shows up. Very few people, right,
Speaker 3: and it's clear that he just doesn't have the support
Speaker 3: of his company, and you know, people are furious with him.
Speaker 4: I think, in part, what all this did was show
Speaker 4: the board members who had forced out Sam Altman that
Speaker 4: there was a lot more employee loyalty than they had
Speaker 4: thought there was, and that they may have actually kicked
Speaker 4: off a complete revolt inside the company.
Speaker 1: And Ilia was also getting other sorts of pressure. According
Speaker 1: to The Wall Street Journal, Greg Brockman's wife Anna had
Speaker 1: a tearful conversation with Ilia in the lobby of open
Speaker 1: Ai that Sunday evening. She was pleading with him to
Speaker 1: reconsider his plan to change his mind and bring Sam back.
Speaker 1: Around one thirty am Monday morning, a group of fed
Speaker 1: up open ai employees drafted a letter to the board.
Speaker 1: They said the way the board had fired Sam and
Speaker 1: hadn't given an adequate explanation had shown they weren't capable
Speaker 1: of leading the company.
Speaker 4: I woke up early the next morning to see people
Speaker 4: were signing petitions saying they were going to leave the
Speaker 4: company if Sam didn't come back. This is hundreds, quickly,
Speaker 4: hundreds and hundreds. In the end, almost all of the
Speaker 4: company's nearly eight hundred employees signed this, posting on social
Speaker 4: media that open ai is nothing without its people. This
Speaker 4: becomes sort of a viral tagline that you see all
Speaker 4: over on x and it seems organic and fast moving
Speaker 4: and sincere.
Speaker 1: Soon Twitter is full of these declarations. Sam and Greg
Speaker 1: start replying to the tweets with heart emojis. It was
Speaker 1: an impressive display of loyalty.
Speaker 13: Open Ai investors are still trying to return co founder
Speaker 13: Sam Outman to a leadership role at the company. At
Speaker 13: the same time, open ai staff are threatening mass mutiny,
Speaker 13: saying they'll follow Outman to Microsoft unless the board resigns Microhoe.
Speaker 1: In addition to heart emojis and support and loyalty, there
Speaker 1: was another factor at play as well. Money. Right before
Speaker 1: the coup, open Ai had been organizing a share sale
Speaker 1: for its employees, letting employees cash out some of their equity. Now,
Speaker 1: with all this chaos us that sale was in danger.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of money at stake.
Speaker 3: This could create a whole new class of basically overnight millionaires,
Speaker 3: and they're looking forward to this, and then now you
Speaker 3: have the entire future of the company sort of up
Speaker 3: in the air. Certain investors are saying that they may
Speaker 3: not continue with the tender offer if Sam doesn't come back.
Speaker 3: So you know, goodbye to that house you were planning
Speaker 3: on buying, or that early retirement you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So that's a pretty strong financial incentive to sign this letter,
Speaker 1: and you could imagine that if ninety five percent of
Speaker 1: your colleagues had signed a letter, there's significant pressure for
Speaker 1: you to sign it too. The craziest part of the
Speaker 1: petition is that it includes Ilia's name. By Monday morning,
Speaker 1: he has flipped. He tweeted, I deeply regret my participation
Speaker 1: in the board's actions. I never intended to harm open AI.
Speaker 1: I will do everything I can to reunite the company.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Ilia was swayed by the outpouring of support for
Speaker 1: Sam from the entire company, or maybe he folded because
Speaker 1: he realized his position was not looking strong here' Sharen.
Speaker 3: I think you know, if you're Ilia, you also he
Speaker 3: was feeling so much pressure from his fellow colleagues and peers.
Speaker 3: You know, you have this overwhelming flood of people sort
Speaker 3: of making fun of Ilia and the board and or
Speaker 3: saying like how could you do this, and just sort
Speaker 3: of not taking this new leadership seriously. And so if
Speaker 3: you're Iliah, you know you have to be like really
Speaker 3: asking yourself if what the path forward is here? And so,
Speaker 3: you know, it kind of makes sense why he ends
Speaker 3: up reversing his decision and doing it complete when Ady
Speaker 3: in a couple of.
Speaker 1: Days, once Ilia flipped back to team Sam, and after
Speaker 1: all those employees had signed that letter, that was the
Speaker 1: beginning of the end of this effort to fire Sam.
Speaker 1: The remaining board members realized they had lost. They gave
Speaker 1: up on trying to get rid of Sam, and instead
Speaker 1: focused on trying to get some concessions, like keeping him
Speaker 1: off the board until an investigation could be done into
Speaker 1: his conduct. Monday and Tuesday were hectic days full of
Speaker 1: negotiations on how to bring Sam back. In just a
Speaker 1: few days, Sam had grappled his way into a dominant
Speaker 1: position once again. Now, the question in these tense negotiations
Speaker 1: wasn't if Sam could be allowed back, it was how
Speaker 1: do we please Sam?
Speaker 3: So all of a sudden, this board that orchestrates acup
Speaker 3: sort of loses their leverage and Sam just seems like
Speaker 3: kind of holds all the cards, and it becomes about, well,
Speaker 3: how can we make a deal that Sam is amenable to.
Speaker 1: By Tuesday night, they've reached a deal. The board is
Speaker 1: going to be overhauled. Helen is out, as is another
Speaker 1: board member who voted against Sam. Ilia is off the
Speaker 1: board too, though he's still working at open AI. New
Speaker 1: board members will be found. Most importantly, Sam returns as
Speaker 1: CEO Greg comes back too. Greg tweets a celebratory picture
Speaker 1: to mark the occasion.
Speaker 3: So, after Sam gets reinstated a CEO, Greg Brockman goes
Speaker 3: on x and he posts this selfie with a bunch
Speaker 3: of staff members like huddled behind him, and they're all
Speaker 3: grinning ear to ear and we're holding at peace signs,
Speaker 3: and he posts we are so back, which just sums
Speaker 3: up the mood so well. Right, they're jubilant, they're just
Speaker 3: like partying. You know, this is a complete win, that's right.
Speaker 1: They sent a company wide memo that night telling people
Speaker 1: to come to the office to party. It's an unbelievable turnaround.
Speaker 1: In just five days, Sam went from being ambushed to
Speaker 1: being back as CEO, with his enemies cast out and
Speaker 1: an army of employees willing to give up their jobs
Speaker 1: on his behalf. In this version of the story, Caesar
Speaker 1: rises from the dead.
Speaker 3: He really does come back, in my view, stronger than
Speaker 3: ever because he not only has you know, this new
Speaker 3: board that's that's he's helped hand select, but he has
Speaker 3: the entire backing of his company and this implicit kind
Speaker 3: of card that he can pull it if at any point,
Speaker 3: you know, he wants to, like Microsoft, will, We'll back
Speaker 3: him up. We'll have a spot for him and all
Speaker 3: the employees who want to leave and go start their
Speaker 3: own version of the company. And so yeah, I think Sam,
Speaker 3: in many ways, it's sort of like, if you come
Speaker 3: for the King, you best not miss like they really missed.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. So after five dramatic head spinning days,
Speaker 1: Sam was back. It was late Tuesday night. That week
Speaker 1: open Ai was actually off. It was a week of Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: so the employees breathed a sigh of relief and tried
Speaker 1: to enjoy the holiday. And once that week was over
Speaker 1: and people got back to work, there was still this
Speaker 1: question that was never really answered. Why did Ilia and
Speaker 1: the others believe they should fire Sam. Sam and open
Speaker 1: Ai have never answered this question in a public transparent way.
Speaker 1: As part of the deal to bring back Sam, open
Speaker 1: Ai agreed to hire a law firm to lead an
Speaker 1: external investigation into the events that led to Sam's ouster.
Speaker 1: The company was not required to share the details of
Speaker 1: the investigation publicly, so surprise, they didn't. They held a
Speaker 1: press conference and summarized the findings, and.
Speaker 6: The special committee recommended in the full board expressed their
Speaker 6: full confidence in Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.
Speaker 4: It was not super specific, but essentially it said that
Speaker 4: Altman had been cleared of wrongdoing.
Speaker 3: There was not a lot, There was no smoking gun.
Speaker 3: The report of the summary was very brief. We you know,
Speaker 3: as reporters have not seen the full investigation.
Speaker 1: The press conference was really short. My colleague Rachel recorded
Speaker 1: this tape. You can hear her typing in the background.
Speaker 1: When it's Sam's turn to talk. He sounds really mumbly
Speaker 1: and begrudging. He makes a half hearted apology to Helen Toner,
Speaker 1: but it's easy to miss when I.
Speaker 8: Believe that a former board member was harmon opening after
Speaker 8: the actions.
Speaker 5: I think I could have.
Speaker 8: Handled that situation with more grace and care. I apologize
Speaker 8: for that. I wish I'd done it differently, and we'll
Speaker 8: learn from the future. I'm eager to move forward and
Speaker 8: to begin the collaborate with.
Speaker 1: After the investigation concluded with a whimper, two board members
Speaker 1: who were kicked off, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, released
Speaker 1: a statement. It said, in part, as we told the investigators, deception,
Speaker 1: manipulation and resistance to throw oversight should be unacceptable. It's
Speaker 1: a carefully worded sentence, but it's also pretty clear to
Speaker 1: me that they're saying deception and manipulation played a big
Speaker 1: part in them deciding to fire Sam. After all the
Speaker 1: dust settled, Ilia remained a troubling question. Mark.
Speaker 3: I think we still don't know Ilia's full motivation for
Speaker 3: turning on Sam. I think he in particular being the
Speaker 3: one who knows Sam so well, who's worked with him
Speaker 3: so closely, And that is a big question of like,
Speaker 3: why would you questions for the character of someone who
Speaker 3: you seemingly have a good relationship with.
Speaker 1: Ilia left Open AI in May, half a year after
Speaker 1: the coup. He spent those six months in purgatory, still
Speaker 1: an employee at the company, but rarely seen at the office,
Speaker 1: no public appearances. When reporters tried to reach him, they
Speaker 1: were sent to his lawyer, who almost never issued a statement.
Speaker 1: It got to the point where Sam even joked about
Speaker 1: it on podcasts. Here he is on Lex Friedman in March.
Speaker 12: Let me ask you about Iliah.
Speaker 2: Is he being held hostage in a.
Speaker 12: Secret nuclear facility?
Speaker 14: No?
Speaker 3: What about a regular secret facility? No, what about a nuclear,
Speaker 3: non secret facility?
Speaker 6: Not that I mean this is becoming.
Speaker 1: In the video, Sam is smiling. You can hear it
Speaker 1: in his voice. He deflects this question. He says, it's
Speaker 1: a question for Ilia. In all of this, Ilia seems
Speaker 1: to have been the most tragic figure the brilliant scientist
Speaker 1: who gave open Ai credibility and a competitive edge, who
Speaker 1: has been able to predict many of the changes in
Speaker 1: AI that made these recent advancements possible. But then he
Speaker 1: attempted to overthrow Sam and failed, becoming a pariah among
Speaker 1: the staff, and ultimately he did this to himself, maybe
Speaker 1: because of his beliefs about AI safety. Even though Sam
Speaker 1: was back as CEO, some serious rifts remained within open AI.
Speaker 1: After Ilia's departure was announced. His team fell apart. It
Speaker 1: had been the team focused on preventing disaster scenarios from AI.
Speaker 1: And what about Helen Toner, the board member who Sam
Speaker 1: tried to oust her paper helped kick off all of this.
Speaker 1: While since the coup, Helen has faced a lot of
Speaker 1: online trolling. People treated her like the villain in this saga.
Speaker 1: AI devotees castigated her as a decelerationist, someone who wants
Speaker 1: to slow down the advancement of AI. Martin Screlly called
Speaker 1: her and the other board members quote the most disgusting
Speaker 1: group of people who ever lived, which is funny because
Speaker 1: Martin Schrelly is commonly called the most hated man in America.
Speaker 1: I feel some sympathy For Helen, I think she may
Speaker 1: have seen herself as doing her job, first as an
Speaker 1: academic in writing her paper, and then as a board
Speaker 1: member in pushing back against a brazen CEO. For several months,
Speaker 1: Helen was largely silent about the whole ordeal until May
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, when she gave the interview to the
Speaker 1: ted Ai Show. She sounds incredibly candid and confident in
Speaker 1: her criticisms of Sam.
Speaker 2: I think it's really important to know that has really
Speaker 2: gone under reported is how scared people are to go
Speaker 2: against Sam. They had experienced him retaliating against people retaliating
Speaker 2: against them for past instances of being critical. They were
Speaker 2: really afraid of what might happen to them. So it
Speaker 2: was very hard for those people who had had terrible
Speaker 2: experiences to actually say that for fear that, you know,
Speaker 2: if Sam did stay in power as he ultimately did,
Speaker 2: you know, that would make their lives miserable.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Sam almost immediately picked up where he left off.
Speaker 1: He started doing press appearances again. He spoke at Davos
Speaker 1: in January, just a couple months after the saga. My
Speaker 1: colleague Bradstone asks him the question that's on everyone's minds
Speaker 1: I sort.
Speaker 11: Of smiled because you came to the Bloomberg Tech conference
Speaker 11: in last June and Emily Chang asked it was something
Speaker 11: along along the lines of why should we trust you,
Speaker 11: and you very candidly says you shouldn't, and you said
Speaker 11: the board should be able to fire me if they want,
Speaker 11: and of course then they did, and you quite depthtely
Speaker 11: orchestrated your return.
Speaker 8: Actually, let me tell you something I the board did that.
Speaker 8: I was like, I think this is wild, super confused,
Speaker 8: super caught off guard, but this is the structure. And
Speaker 8: I immediately just went to go thinking about what I
Speaker 8: was going to do next. It was not until some
Speaker 8: board members called me the next morning that I even
Speaker 8: thought about really coming back. When they asked you to
Speaker 8: come back, I want to talk about that, but like
Speaker 8: the board did have all of the power there, No,
Speaker 8: you know what, I'm not going to say that next thing.
Speaker 6: I think you should continue.
Speaker 1: The audience laughs when Brad reminds Sam that he had
Speaker 1: said the board should be able to fire him right
Speaker 1: before he was fired, and Sam notably did not laugh.
Speaker 1: He didn't even crack a smile. He responds that the
Speaker 1: board wanted to bring him back on they had all
Speaker 1: the power there, not him, And then a third person
Speaker 1: on the panel, Anna Macanju, who's an executive at open Ai,
Speaker 1: jumps in.
Speaker 10: I would also just say that I think that there's
Speaker 10: a lot of narratives out there. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 10: this was orchestrated by all these these other forces. It's
Speaker 10: not accurates. I mean, it was the employees of open
Speaker 10: Ai that wanted this, and that thought was the right
Speaker 10: thing for Sam to be back, you.
Speaker 8: Know, like, yeah, I think I'll say is I think
Speaker 8: it's important that I have an entity that like canfire this,
Speaker 8: but that entity has got to have some accountability too,
Speaker 8: and that is a clear issue with what happened.
Speaker 10: Of course.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Sam is saying his usual talking point that
Speaker 1: it's important that he can get fired, but he's adding
Speaker 1: a big caveat that the board needs to do things
Speaker 1: in the right way, and in this case they didn't.
Speaker 1: He's criticizing the board. Reid Hoffman agrees with Sam that
Speaker 1: the board was to blame for the whole fiasco. Reed
Speaker 1: had actually been on the board of open Ai for years,
Speaker 1: but left in early twenty twenty three, just months before
Speaker 1: the coup.
Speaker 6: Well, when you look at the four board members who
Speaker 6: got together and fired Sam. Three of them had never
Speaker 6: really had experience in other boards and understand kind of
Speaker 6: board governance. They had so little experience that there were
Speaker 6: six board members. They didn't invite the fifth, Greg Brockman,
Speaker 6: because they presumably knew that he would disagree with them.
Speaker 6: And you think, well, basic board competence is you don't
Speaker 6: disinvite the board members who you can disagree with. You
Speaker 6: want to hear the disagreement, you want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: So he's dismissing them as a bunch of amateurs, which
Speaker 1: isn't entirely true because a few of the board members
Speaker 1: have served on other boards as well. We asked Reid
Speaker 1: to clarify, and he said they hadn't been on the
Speaker 1: boards of fast growing tech companies. I can kind of
Speaker 1: see where Reid and Sam are coming from. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they really believe the board acted inappropriately, but I also
Speaker 1: can't help but see it as someone saying, we have
Speaker 1: designed a system where I am accountable to you, you
Speaker 1: should hold me accountable. Then when it actually happens, they're shouting, no, wait,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean it like that.
Speaker 3: It all sounds and nice to say We're going to
Speaker 3: have this benevolent company that's kind of a nonprofit and
Speaker 3: kind of not and as his board that can fire
Speaker 3: at CEO at any time. And then in practice that
Speaker 3: turned out to be a lot less friendly than it
Speaker 3: may be sounded initially.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I've spent a lot of time talking about Sam,
Speaker 1: what shaped him when he was young, how he speaks
Speaker 1: in public, how he acts in private, and over the
Speaker 1: course of the months I spent working on this podcast,
Speaker 1: I've observed one thing that I think is key to
Speaker 1: understanding Sam. Sam is slippery, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: his words. I think it's fair to say that when
Speaker 1: he says something, you cannot be sure that he actually
Speaker 1: means it. An obvious example him saying he should be fired.
Speaker 1: He made it sound so clear, so obvious, no caveats.
Speaker 1: Then he got fired, and all of a sudden, that
Speaker 1: promise doesn't apply. Here's another example. Sam loves to boast
Speaker 1: about how transparent he is. Here he is last summer
Speaker 1: talking at a Bloomberg conference. This was in the middle
Speaker 1: of his big press tour of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 8: You know me, for a long time public talking, I'd
Speaker 8: rather be in the office working but I think at
Speaker 8: this moment in time, like people deserve basically as much
Speaker 8: time asking questions as they want, and I'm trying to
Speaker 8: show up and do it.
Speaker 1: But people deserve as much time asking questions as they want.
Speaker 1: Like Sam is actually framing his transparency as a moral imperative,
Speaker 1: not just something he likes, but something he should do,
Speaker 1: given how pivotal AI could be. It's reassuring to hear
Speaker 1: him welcome questions and the way he says he'd rather
Speaker 1: be working than be in an interview. It has this
Speaker 1: kind of humble, awe shucks energy to it. He says
Speaker 1: he doesn't like being on stage. He says he's sort
Speaker 1: of a shy person. I'm sure some of it is earnest,
Speaker 1: but he's smart enough to know. It also bolsters his image,
Speaker 1: makes him non threatening. It reminds me of the way
Speaker 1: he always writes his tweets in all lowercase, so friendly.
Speaker 1: Last year, Sam said it would be super unreasonable not
Speaker 1: to answer questions. He also said that he and open
Speaker 1: AI deserve great scrutiny right now. But in more recent interviews,
Speaker 1: Sam seems to have changed his tune. Instead of answering
Speaker 1: those questions about Ilia's whereabouts he deflected, and again in
Speaker 1: that conversation at Davos, when Brad asked a question about
Speaker 1: Sam's firing to the co panelist Ata Maconju, Sam jumped
Speaker 1: in and blocked it.
Speaker 14: Anna, you wrote a remarkable letter to employees during the saga,
Speaker 14: and one of the many reasons I was excited to
Speaker 14: have you on stage today was to just ask you,
Speaker 14: what were those five days like for you?
Speaker 11: And why did you step up and write that.
Speaker 8: Ana can clearly answer this if she wants to, But like,
Speaker 8: is really what you want to spend our time on,
Speaker 8: like the soap opera rather than like what Ahi is
Speaker 8: going to do?
Speaker 14: I mean, I'm wrapping it up, but I mean I
Speaker 14: think people are interested.
Speaker 11: Well, we can leave it here if you want to, Yea,
Speaker 11: let's answer that question to talk about we can move on.
Speaker 10: I would just say, for color that it happened the
Speaker 10: day before the entire company was supposed to take a
Speaker 10: week off, so Friday.
Speaker 1: That comment, do you really want to talk about this
Speaker 1: soap opera? Is a perfect example of Sam's habit of
Speaker 1: grabbing control of a conversation when he's asked a question
Speaker 1: he doesn't like or doesn't want to answer. He not
Speaker 1: only skates past it, he flips it back on the
Speaker 1: interviewer and chastises them for asking Sam is a scold.
Speaker 1: I've noticed that he uses this tactic, especially when journalists
Speaker 1: start asking him about interpersonal drama, messiness, instances where he
Speaker 1: might come out looking bad. He did a similar thing
Speaker 1: at a Bloomberg conference last year by colleague Emily Chang
Speaker 1: asks him about Elon Musk, who has been bad mouthing
Speaker 1: Sam and open AI, complaining that they are no longer
Speaker 1: open now.
Speaker 9: Obviously we've seen all the barbs that you and Elon
Speaker 9: have been trading in public and in interviews, writing I
Speaker 9: don't really well you're responding. You respond, you get asked
Speaker 9: about it by people.
Speaker 8: Like me, to be mostly people like you to be honest.
Speaker 8: Most other people ask about the technology.
Speaker 14: But that is.
Speaker 1: True, most other people ask about the technology frustrated ouch.
Speaker 1: His implicit message is pretty clear to me. It's virtuous
Speaker 1: and high minded to want to talk about the technology,
Speaker 1: the science. It's petty to ask about his relationship with Elon.
Speaker 1: When Emily presses, he doubles down, like, I really.
Speaker 8: Am happy to talk about this, that this is the
Speaker 8: most important topic we can spend the rest of the
Speaker 8: time on it.
Speaker 1: I think the rest of the.
Speaker 4: Time just some.
Speaker 1: In a taped interview ahead of this on stage conversation,
Speaker 1: when Emily asked him a similar question about Elon, he
Speaker 1: dismissed her in the same way.
Speaker 8: I don't think this is in the top one hundred
Speaker 8: most important things happening related to AI right now, for what.
Speaker 1: It's worth it to me, it sounds like Sam means
Speaker 1: he should only answer the questions he deems worthwhile, and
Speaker 1: he dismisses questions by implying they're the wrong ones, unimportant questions,
Speaker 1: not worth his time. The board fired Sam for being
Speaker 1: not consistently candid, and while we may never know exactly
Speaker 1: what they were referring to, we've seen many other instances
Speaker 1: when Sam's actions didn't live up to his words. Sam
Speaker 1: promised transparency, he promised that he could get fired. He's
Speaker 1: walked both of those back. He talked a big game
Speaker 1: about how poverty shouldn't exist and how we should give
Speaker 1: money to everyone without conditions, but he set conditions on
Speaker 1: financial help to his sister. Even the actress Scarlet Johanson
Speaker 1: has complained about Sam's duplicity. She said that in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, Sam asked her to lend her voice to
Speaker 1: chat GPT. She said no, and then when an ai
Speaker 1: voice was released, it sounded so much like her that
Speaker 1: it confused even her family and close friends. Some of
Speaker 1: open AI's promises have also eroded. Open ai started as
Speaker 1: a nonprofit, but many critics, most loudly elon Musk, say
Speaker 1: they're not anymore. Not really. The nonprofit board was supposed
Speaker 1: to have power over Sam, power to even dissolve open
Speaker 1: ai if they thought it was in line with the mission.
Speaker 1: Those board members tried to exercise their power, and as
Speaker 1: a result, they were removed. This pattern matters because Sam
Speaker 1: and open ai are making more and more promises with
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger consequences and asking us to take their
Speaker 1: word for it. Meanwhile, Sam's ambition keeps growing. He once
Speaker 1: considered running for governor of California. In addition to sitting
Speaker 1: at the top of open ai, he's overseeing other projects
Speaker 1: that connect to and support open ai, like a sam
Speaker 1: Altman ecosystem. He has his universal basic income research in
Speaker 1: case AI puts us out of work. He has world coin,
Speaker 1: the crypto project that scans eyeballs in order to distribute
Speaker 1: that income. He has a nuclear fusion company that will
Speaker 1: create enough energy for AI. He's trying to raise enormous
Speaker 1: sums of money to make chips that power AI. Someone
Speaker 1: who knows Sam told me he wants to be world emperor.
Speaker 1: The goal is to take over the world. Paul Graham,
Speaker 1: Sam's former mentor, told a reporter, I think his goal
Speaker 1: is to make the whole future. Foundering is hosted by
Speaker 1: me Ellen Hewitt. Sean Wen is our executive producer. Rachel
Speaker 1: Metz and Sharene Gaffari contributed reporting to this episode. Molly
Speaker 1: Nugent is our associate producer. Blake Maples is our audio engineer.
Speaker 1: Mark Million and Vandermy Seth Fiegerman, Tom Giles and Molly
Speaker 1: Schutz are our story editors. We had production help from
Speaker 1: Jessica Nix and Antonio muffaretch Thanks for listening. If you
Speaker 1: like our show, leave a review, and most importantly, tell
Speaker 1: your friends. See you next time.