Microsoft has announced the signing of Sam Altman, co-founder and, until last Friday, CEO of OpenAI. The company has also added to its ranks Greg Brockman, a well-known director and board member of OpenAI who left the company after what happened at the end of last week.
“We are extremely excited to announce that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, along with their colleagues, will join Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” announced Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, through his official profile on X (Twitter).
The hiring of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman represents a new script twist in this story. After Altman’s unexpected dismissal last Friday, several media outlets claimed that the OpenAI board was being pressured to return Altman to the position. These came from both some investors and employees, who threatened to resign en masse if the opposite did not happen.
Among the investors who would have pressured to make Altman’s return possible would be Microsoft. Mira Murati, CTO of OpenAI until last Friday and interim CEO from that day until this Monday, when she was replaced by Emmett Shear, former CEO of Twitch, would also have insisted on it.
Microsoft takes Sam Altman after maintaining a close relationship with OpenAI
In January 2023, Microsoft announced a multi-million dollar investment in OpenAI, raising its stake in the company and establishing itself as one of its largest investors. Since then, both companies have worked very closely. Proof of this is Bing Chat – now called Copilot – or the various AI-based functions that have been implemented over the last few months in Windows, Office, etc. All of them depend to a greater or lesser extent on the models developed by OpenAI.
This close relationship, at least for the moment, will continue despite Altman’s departure, as announced by Satya Nadella on his official X profile (Twitter). The executive took advantage of his statement to welcome the new CEO of the corporation, who until March 2023 led Twitch.
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