OpenAI Employees Rejects Salesforce CEO's Job Offer: "We're With Sam Altman"

Marc Benioff, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), offered a job to any OpenAI researcher who quits following the ouster of Sam Altman. In a lengthy post, the Salesforce CEO stated that the company would match the full cash and OTE (open trade equity) of researchers who quit OpenAI 'to immediately join' the Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese.

Mr Benioff's offer came after more than 700 of the AI firm's roughly 770 employees signed a letter on Monday addressed to OpenAI's board, stating that the signatories are 'unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment, and care for our mission and employees.' The letter called for every member of the board to resign and for Altman to be reinstated; otherwise, employees might jump to Microsoft. The software giant 'has assured us there are positions for all OpenAI employees,' the letter said, as reported by Bloomberg.

However, Mr Benioff's generous offer had only a few takers. He wrote on X, "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 ceo@salesforce.com."

See the post here:

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 ceo@salesforce.com. Einstein is the most successful… pic.twitter.com/1RXoc9ekeo

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) November 20, 2023

Reacting to the offer, OpenAI's Tony Wu called the offer super generous but rejected it by saying it he would stick with Sam Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman. 

"@Benioff This is a super generous offer! I'm sure my team really appreciates it. But we're with @sama @miramurati and @gdb to the end."

Another OpenAI employee, Steven Heidel gave a hilarious response to Mr Benioff's offer. "Listen, I love Slack but the company that builds Tableau isn't going to build AGI."

Boris Power, Head of Applied Research at OpenAI, explained that they were not quitting because of compensation. "Lol, like it was ever about compensation. We got >95% in less than 24 hours, and the compensation never crossed my mind! Can you give us 700 of our amazing colleagues, then we may budge."

Silicon Valley was left aghast by Altman's firing, with the investor community and OpenAI's own staff furious that the four-person board got in the way of going faster into the AI age, AFP reported. 

Mr Altman's ouster from the company he co-founded also leaves OpenAI and its employees with some immediate unknowns. Thrive Capital had been expected to lead an offer for employee shares, a deal that would value OpenAI at $86 billion (roughly Rs. 7,16,735 crore). As of this weekend, the firm had not yet wired the money and it told OpenAI that Altman's departure would affect its actions.