- Brains behind ChatGPT wins return to OpenAI
- Generative AI start-up thrown into chaos after CEO initially ousted
- Microsoft market cap gains $60 billion in a week
Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) has emerged as the real winner from the Sam Altman chaos. To quickly recap, Sam Altman is the chief brain behind OpenAI, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence start-up that developed ChatGPT and the generative AI technology that has driven the US stock markets to record highs this year.
Last weekend (18/19 Nov), it emerged that Altman had been fired as OpenAI’s chief executive and from its board after apparent conflict with other board members. This was a big deal. Altman had become the face of generative AI’s rapid commercialisation since ChatGPT’s arrival a year ago. Que several days of chaos.
MANIC MUSICAL CHAIRS
Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest backer (it owns about 49%), led a campaign to reinstate him, the software company then offered Altman a top AI job after OpenAI’s board refused to take Altman back, hundreds of OpenAI staff threatened to walk out and join Altman at Microsoft, followed by OpenAI’s board seemingly rethinking their position.
The upshot is that Altman is now back as boss at OpenAI and its board has been overhauled. OpenAI said in a statement that ‘we have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board.’
The board, which replaces the one that fired Altman, will be led by former Salesforce (CRM:NYSE) co-CEO Bret Taylor, who also chaired Twitter’s board before its takeover by Elon Musk last year. The other members will be former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
A BIG WIN FOR MICROSOFT
It may have been chaotic, but it leaves Microsoft in pole position in this exciting new technology. Some analysts have said the software player in AI. It keeps Altman’s brain onboard without having to pay him an enormous salary, keeps all of those hundreds of staffers on board, again without directly paying their salaries, and protection of its investment in OpenAI worth, at last count, $10 billion, and perhaps more.
This week, shares in the software giant have risen more than 2%, adding an extra $60 billion-plus to Microsoft’s market valuation, or in other words, the equivalent of the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) market cap. Microsoft stock closed the shortened Thanksgiving holiday trading week at $377.85, setting a new all-time record. What a win.
