Last Updated on August 7, 2024 6:47 pm by Laszlo Szabo / NowadAIs | Published on August 7, 2024 by Laszlo Szabo / NowadAIs
OpenAI Heading to Leadership Crisis?
OpenAI is experiencing a crisis in leadership as three influential individuals have announced their departure.
This development comes during a turbulent year for the AI powerhouse, marked by legal disputes and prominent resignations. One of OpenAI’s co-founders, John Schulman, has decided to leave and join rival Anthropic, as confirmed in a statement on X. In his statement, Schulman explains that his departure is driven by his desire to focus more on AI alignment and return to technical work:
I shared the following note with my OpenAI colleagues today:
I’ve made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I’ve decided…
— John Schulman (@johnschulman2) August 6, 2024
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman expressed his gratitude for Schulman’s contributions and assured him that the company will continue to make him proud:
Thank you for everything you’ve done for OpenAI! You are a brilliant researcher, a deep thinker about product and society, and mostly, you are a great friend to all of us. We will miss you tremendously and make you proud of this place.
(I first met John in a cafe in Berkeley in…
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 6, 2024
A spokesperson for OpenAI also praised Schulman’s work, highlighting its significance in establishing a strong foundation for the company and the broader AI industry.
Key Figures Left
Schulman’s departure is closely followed by Jan Leike, another co-leader of OpenAI’s superalignment group, who also left for Anthropic in May:
I’m excited to join @AnthropicAI to continue the superalignment mission!
My new team will work on scalable oversight, weak-to-strong generalization, and automated alignment research.
If you’re interested in joining, my dms are open.
— Jan Leike (@janleike) May 28, 2024
Adding to the situation, Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder and chief scientist at OpenAI, as well as the other leader of the superalignment team, announced his departure in May to pursue his own startup aimed at developing safe superintelligence.
After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The company’s trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of @sama, @gdb, @miramurati and now, under the…
— Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut) May 14, 2024
With these recent departures, OpenAI is left with only three of its original 11 founders.
In addition, OpenAI president Greg Brockman has also announced an extended leave of absence until the end of the year. Although he reassured the public that the company’s mission is far from complete and that they are still dedicated to building safe artificial general intelligence, his absence will undoubtedly be felt.
I’m taking a sabbatical through end of year. First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI 9 years ago. The mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) August 6, 2024
According to reports, another prominent AI figure, Peter Deng, who joined OpenAI last year after leading products at Meta, Uber, and Airtable, has also left the company.
