Why OpenAI Fired Sam Altman Ex-Board Member Explains

Everyone was shocked when OpenAI’s board suddenly fired co-founder and CEO Sam Altman on November 17, 2023.

Whatever happened to him? With ChatGPT, he was in charge of one of the fastest-growing app launches ever. At the TED AI Show podcast interview, Helen Toner, a former board member, fills in the blanks by talking about what happened that made board members stop trusting Altman and how he eventually came back.

According to what she said, the board thought that going behind his back was the only way to get a new CEO hired in the end. “It was very clear to all of us that as soon as Sam thought we might do something that would hurt him, he would pull out all the stops and do everything he could to sabotage the board and stop us from even being able to fire him,” Toner said.

Reasons Behind the Board’s Distrust

Toner says that the board stopped trusting Altman because he didn’t tell them that he owned the OpenAI Startup Fund and because he lied to them “multiple times” about how the company kept its safety. Toner also claims that the CEO went after her personally after she published a research paper that made him mad. “Sam started telling lies to other board members to get rid of me,” she recounts. The board finally did something after two executives told them directly about their own experiences with Altman. They talked about a toxic work environment at OpenAI, accused him of “psychological abuse,” and showed proof of Altman “lying and being manipulative in different situations.”

Toner says that the launch of ChatGPT shows that the board didn’t really keep an eye on the business. ” When ChatGPT came out November 2022, the board was not informed in advance. We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter,”  says Toner. The podcast doesn’t go into specifics about what happened after Altman was fired. OpenAI quickly changed interim CEOs. Employees, including at least one of the board members who fired Altman, pushed for him to come back, and Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest investor, also backed him.

But Toner gives three reasons for why she thinks there was so much pressure to bring Altman back. She says that workers were given two choices: they could either get rid of the board to bring Altman back or the company would be destroyed. Since no one wanted the company to fail, they chose the second option. She also says that many people were afraid to stand up to Altman after seeing him get back at other people.