Sam Altman, the former CEO of OpenAI, who was fired last week, November 17, will join Microsoft to lead a new team focused on artificial intelligence. Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, who quit the company, is joining the Redmond tech giant.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, made this announcement on X (formerly Twitter).
“We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”
The announcement comes after Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and board director of OpenAI, told The Information that Altman would not return to OpenAI despite executives’ efforts to bring him back.
Following the failed deal, OpenAI appointed its third CEO, Emmett Shear (former CEO and co-founder of Twitch), in one weekend.
Earlier this year, Shear resigned as Twitch CEO after spending over ten years turning the company from Justin.tv into the most successful video game streaming service.
After departure from Twitch, Shear became a partner at Y Combinator, the startup accelerator. Notably, Altman was formerly president of Y Combinator.
In a post on X early Monday, Shear said he got a call from the OpenAI asking him to become interim CEO of the company and that he had accepted “after consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours.”
Shear’s appointment comes after Altman, who led OpenAI through the development of the wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT, left after facing pressure from the board to step down.
“We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward,” says OpenAI in the blog post.
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