What a time to be alive. Now that Sam Altman is back as the CEO of OpenAI, after getting fired on Friday, then joining Microsoft on Sunday evening, there are a lot of questions about what actually transpired before the firing happened. It also looks like it was Altman’s plan all along.

The idea was to change the board

All of the recent developments hint towards a simple thing that the OpenAI board members were clearly not aligned with the for-profit direction that OpenAI was headed towards under Altman’s leadership. The old board members such as Helen Tomer had major contentions with what Altman was doing.

Toner wrote a paper titled ‘Decoding Intentions’ that was critical of OpenAI, and was praising Anthropic. The paper said that Anthropic’s willingness to not release its AI models is “exactly the kind of frantic corner-cutting that the release of ChatGPT appeared to spur.” 

She further praised Anthropic for investing more into AI safety than OpenAI. People on X criticise her views, saying it sounds more like an opinion piece than a research paper. Simply put, she wanted to kill OpenAI to save humanity. She reached scarily close. 

Interestingly, Toner was quiet during all the debacle. She posted on X after Altman is hired back with, “and now, we all get some sleep.” It might be a far fetched idea to say that it was Toner who started the coup against Altman, but there is still a chance.

Not just Altman, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella, has previously expressed his disappointment with the former board, saying, “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”

“Sam, Greg, and I have talked and agreed they have a key role to play along with the OpenAI leadership team in ensuring OpenAI continues to thrive and build on its mission. We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering the value of this next generation of AI to our customers and partners” he added in his statement. 

Sam loved the weekend

Altman has posted on X saying, “I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together.” He added that he wants to continue working with the new board of OpenAI and also build a strong partnership with Microsoft. Interestingly, Microsoft is also going to be an observant part of the new board.

Seemingly, Altman loves everything that happened over the past few days, and it was in service of keeping the team together. It is quite worrisome to say the least, given all the chaos that was created. 

On the other hand, as soon as Altman was fired, the whole team showed solidarity, and started to force the board to resign. Interestingly enough, Ilya Sutskever, who broke the news to Altman, also switched sides later, and apologised publicly for harming OpenAI. He also signed the petition along with Mira Murati and 10 others for resignation of the board.

With 95% of the employees ready to quit unless Altman comes back, there was no other option left for the company to do apart from changing the board members. It all worked out how Sam wanted it to. Now everyone would be back, without the old OpenAI board. 

The problem with the structure of OpenAI is that it is very twisted. A non-profit board controls the for-profit entity of the company. So even though Altman was not taking any salary from OpenAI, maybe he changed his mind now. Furthermore, the new board that comes along now would also be in favour of what Altman wants. 

What did Sam get?

Firstly, it is reasonable to say that Altman has always been an investor, and thus there is very little reason to believe that the altruistic approach of saving humanity with AI is actually the case, and not just a charade. Even if it is, he believes in a for-profit approach towards AGI, which is unlike the other former board members.

Secondly, Altman always knew that the board could fire him and he should not be trusted, as he said in an interview. Moreover, Elon Musk said six months ago, “At any point Microsoft could cut off OpenAI.”

Combining that with Nadella’s point of view in all of this, who is the biggest investor in OpenAI, and has massive belief in Altman, the plan started as soon as Altman got fired. 

Even while considering that the firing on Friday was a surprise to Altman and Nadella, they must have shook hands that it is time for the board to go. Altman was never going to be a part of Microsoft and work under some other leadership, or start any other ventures, it was all just to scare the OpenAI board members, and the team helped in it.

But Adam D’Angelo, one of the board members that voted for firing Altman, is still part of the new board. Moreover, the damage done to Microsoft and the investors is just collateral damage for Altman.

Interestingly, Altman and Greg Brockman are still not going to be part of the board. Moreover, Altman has also agreed for an internal investigation to find out why he was fired. So all has not worked out in their favour. The new board will review the circumstances of Altman’s firing.

Shear was right when he said, “Sam is a great sales guy.” It might be just his plan all along.