Most OpenAI employees demand Altman's return, threaten to join Microsoft

Employees of OpenAI have published an open letter to the Board of Directors, in which they accused the board members of short-sighted dismissal of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and of inability to see the company's development strategy.

The signatories – according to New York Magazine, 505 people out of 700 employees in total – threaten to fire them and transfer them to a new structure created by Microsoft and headed by Altman and Brockman. They also point out that Microsoft has assured them that they are ready to accept anyone who wants to join them.

Employees' demands:

- Dismissal of all current members of the Board of Directors,

- appointment of two independent directors,

- the return of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.

However, the position of the employees and the developments in the company are not entirely clear: Mira Murati and Ilya Sutskever are among the first names under the letter. Both were (and still are) members of the Board of Directors, and moreover, Altman's conflict with Ilya is considered to be the root cause of all the events from Friday to the present.

Microsoft can be considered the "godmother" of OpenAI: it invested more than $10 billion in the startup, actively used all OpenAI products, and contributed to the company's development in every way possible.

Background. As reported, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who was fired from his own company by the Board of Directors, will join Microsoft.

This was announced by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Altman will lead a new advanced AI research group. Nadella also added that Microsoft is committed to the partnership with OpenAI.

"We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shire and the new OAI leadership team and working with them," he wrote.

A few days ago, it became known that the head of OpenAI, Sam Altman, was fired from his own company by the decision of the board of directors.

Later, it became known that the company's president, Greg Brockman, had resigned at his own request.