one year on
Microsoft hires Altman and Brockman to lead new AI research team; OpenAI employees press board to resign
Satya Nadella scoops up the ousted OpenAI founders while OpenAI employees ask the board to resign.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced early Monday that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will lead a new advanced AI research team at Microsoft, ending a weekend of frantic negotiations after OpenAI’s board abruptly fired Altman on Friday. Altman will serve as CEO of the new group, joined by Brockman and several former OpenAI colleagues including Szymon Sidor, Jakub Pachocki and Aleksander Madry.
More than two dozen OpenAI employees tweet, ‘OpenAI is nothing without its people,’ in apparent support of Altman and Brockman. OpenAI employees write Monday asking the board to resign.
Nadella said Microsoft remains ‘committed to our partnership with OpenAI’ despite hiring its former leaders, and that the company looks forward to working with new interim CEO Emmett Shear. The OpenAI board appointed Shear, former Twitch CEO, on Sunday after failing to reach an agreement with Altman over the weekend. Shear acknowledged the process ‘has been handled very badly’ and pledged to hire an independent investigator and consider governance changes.
Analysts at Wedbush called the move an ‘earthquake,’ adding that losing Altman and Brockman is a clear near-term blow to some of OpenAI’s future strategic initiatives.
The record
Admitted that the process 'has been handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust.'
Announced the hires in a post on X, saying Microsoft has learned how to give founders space to build independent identities within the company, citing GitHub, Mojang and LinkedIn as examples.
One year later — open only if you can handle spoilers
The Altman-Brockman move never fully materialized — within days, Altman was reinstated as OpenAI CEO and a new board was formed. The event permanently altered OpenAI's governance structure and accelerated industry focus on board oversight in AI companies.