Approximately four GPTs and seven years ago, OpenAI’s founders brought forth on this corporate landscape a new entity, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men might live equally when AGI is created.

Now we are engaged in a great corporate war, testing whether that entity, or any entity so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

What matters is not theory but practice. What happens when the chips are down?

So what happened? What prompted it? What will happen now?

To a large extent, even more than usual, we do not know. We should not pretend that we know more than we do.

Rather than attempt to interpret here or barrage with an endless string of reactions and quotes, I will instead do my best to stick to a compilation of the key facts.

(Note: All times stated here are eastern by default.)

Just the Facts, Ma’am

What do we know for sure, or at least close to sure?

Here is OpenAI’s corporate structure, giving the board of the 501c3 the power to hire and fire the CEO. It is explicitly dedicated to its nonprofit mission, over and above any duties to shareholders of secondary entities. Investors were warned that there was zero obligation to ever turn a profit:

A block diagram of OpenAI's unusual structure, provided by OpenAI.

Here are the most noteworthy things we know happened, as best I can make out.

On Friday afternoon at 3:28pm, the OpenAI board fired Sam Altman, appointing CTO Mira Murati as temporary CEO effective immediately. They did so over a Google Meet that did not include then-chairmen Greg Brockman.
Greg Brockman, Altman’s old friend and ally, was removed as chairman of the board but the board said he would stay on as President. In response, he quit.
The board told almost no one. Microsoft got one minute of warning.
Mira Murati is the only other person we know was told, which happened on Thursday night.
From the announcement by the board: “Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
In a statement, the board of directors said: “OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this

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Drama

See also