Sam Altman Returned To OpenAI With Help From Company's Interim CEO, Airbnb Chief: Report

ChatGPT maker OpenAI witnessed a harrowing time after it fired CEO Sam Altman last month. The artificial intelligence community witnessed high drama for five days before OpenAI reached an agreement to bring back Sam Altman as the CEO and appoint new board members after nearly all of its employees threatened to quit over his ouster. The incident highlighted deep tensions at the heart of the artificial intelligence community. Now, it has been revealed that some of Silicon Valley's most influential CEOs helped Mr Altman to join back, as per a report in the Wall Street Journal. 

Emmett Shear, the interim CEO of OpenAI, and Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, helped pave the way for Sam Altman's return. Mr Altman texted Mr Chesky minutes after his departure was announced. He sent him a message reading, "So brutal." Mr Chesky hopped on a video call with him and the company's President and co-founder Greg Brockman questioned them about the board's decision to terminate him during their conversation that day. Mr Altman said that there might have been some complaints from the board members. 

Understanding that it was not a criminal matter, Mr Chesky called Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO. Mr Altman was then advised by a small group of Silicon Valley executives including Ron Conway, an early investor in Google and Facebook, and the CEO of Airbnb, who also tried to bargain with the board by making phone calls. 

Further, the majority of the OpenAI's staff threatened to quit after the board appointed Emmett Shear, co-founder of Twitch as the company's interim CEO. Another thing that worked well for Mr Altman was the fact that Mr Shear was an ally and a mentor of Mr Chesky.

At that time, Mr Shear had vowed to hire an independent investigator to probe the abrupt ouster of Mr Altman and reform the management team over the next 30 days as he sought to restore trust in the US start-up after a dramatic weekend. "It's clear that the process and communications around Sam's removal has been handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust," Emmett said in a post on X describing his new job as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity".

After OpenAI announced that it has reached an agreement to bring back Sam Altman as their Chief and appoint new board members, Mr Shear said that he is "deeply pleased" by this move and was happy to "have been a part of the solution". "I am deeply pleased by this result, after -72 very intense hours of work. Coming into OpenAI, I wasn't sure what the right path would be. This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved. I'm glad to have been a part of the solution," he wrote on the microblogging platform on November 22.