While Silicon Valley was in shock when Sam Altman, the founding CEO of ‘Open AI’, which is causing a generative artificial intelligence (AI) craze on Wall Street, was suddenly fired, the person who led this coup was the one who led the coup. It turns out that he is the chief scientist who co-founded Ilya Sutskever.
Sützkever co-founded Open AI with Altman. However, they clashed on various issues, including the speed of generative AI development, methods of commercialization, and methods needed to reduce potential harm to the public.
In addition, Altman pursued an aggressive expansion policy. According to a person familiar with the investment proposal, Altman planned to raise tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to create an AI chip startup that would compete with processors made by Nvidia.
Altman was also courting SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son.
However, Sutskever reportedly opposed this. They opposed Altman’s policies because they believed that his excessive expansion could lead the company in a different direction from the direction it had originally pursued.
Accordingly, it appears that he mobilized the board of directors and ousted co-founder Altman.
However, it remains to be seen whether his coup will succeed. This is because employees and investors want Altman to return.
The American IT media outlet Verge reported on the 19th (local time), citing multiple sources, that the board of directors was discussing Altman’s return to the company.
Burge predicted that if he returns, he will demand a reorganization of the company’s governance structure. In other words, there is a high possibility that they will demand the dismissal of Sutskever, who launched the coup.
The board made this decision because if Altman establishes a new AI venture company, many high-quality people will follow him.
One executive said, “The board is trying to bring Altman back,” and added, “There will be good news soon.”
Open AI employees want Altman to return, sending heart emoticons to him through an X (formerly Twitter) post.
Sutskever is a Russian-born Israeli-Canadian and is 38 years old. He was born in Russia but moved to Israel at the age of three, and his college education is said to have been received in Canada.
It is known that he has continued to work in the field of artificial intelligence, including playing a critical role in the development of ‘AlphaGo’, which defeated Go genius Lee Sedol in 2016.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.