Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has a seat at the table — or board — again.
OpenAI announced today that Altman will rejoin the company's board of directors several months after losing his seat and being fired as CEO of OpenAI.
He is joined by three new members: former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellman, former Sony Entertainment CEO Nicole Seligman, and Instacart CEO Fidji Simo – bringing the number of OpenAI's board to seven people.
Members of the transition council – the board formed after Altman's ouster in November – will not step down, with Desmond Hellman, Seligman and Simo appointed. Brett Taylor, co-CEO of Salesforce (current chairman of OpenAI), Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, and Larry Summers, economist and former Harvard University president, will remain in their positions on the board, as will Dee Templeton, the board's previously appointed observer. Microsoft. .
The appointment of the four new board members — and the reappointment of Altman — comes after OpenAI received criticism for the all-male makeup of its board and the nomination of Summers, who has a history of making unflattering remarks about women. The Congressional Black Caucus cited the board's lack of diversity in a letter sent in January, noting the importance of a Black perspective in building tools to help mitigate AI bias.
OpenAI's expanded board is certainly diverse — at least in terms of their backgrounds.
Desmond Hellman, in addition to heading the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for six years, was previously chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, and before that was head of product development at Genentech, where she helped develop gene-targeting cancer drugs. Desmond Hellman is an oncologist by training, board certified in both internal medicine and medical oncology.
Seligman, an attorney and corporate director, received national attention for her representation of Lt. Col. Oliver North during the Iran-Contra hearings and President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial. Seligman was the venture capital director and general counsel of Sony before rising through the ranks to CEO of Sony Corporation and president of Sony Corporation of America.
As for Fidji Simo, before becoming CEO of Instacart, she was Meta's head of Facebook implementation and vice president overseeing Meta's various video, gaming, and monetization efforts. Simo also co-founded – and currently chairs – the Metrodora Foundation, a health clinic and research institute.
“Sue, Fidgie, and Nicole have experience leading global organizations and navigating complex regulatory environments, including backgrounds in technology, nonprofits, and board governance,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post. “They will work closely with current Board Members Adam D’Angelo, Larry Summers and Brett Taylor as well as senior management of Sam and OpenAI.”
The board expansion and Altman's reinstatement also comes on the heels of an investigation by law firm WilmerHale, retained by OpenAI, which concluded that Altman's ouster was “a result of a breakdown in the relationship and a loss of trust” between Altman and the previous board — and not because of “concerns about product safety or… The security, pace of development, or financial resources of OpenAI are not disclosed to investors, customers, or business partners.
During the investigation, WilmerHale conducted dozens of interviews with the company's former board of directors, current executives, consultants and other witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents and other company actions, OpenAI said in a post on its blog. In the company's opinion, the previous board acted within its right to terminate Altman's employment — but Altman's conduct did not force the removal.
“We have unanimously concluded that Sam W [OpenAI president Greg Brockman] “They are the right leaders for OpenAI,” Taylor said in a statement. “We recognize the magnitude of our role in managing transformative technologies for global good.”
It's unlikely that everyone at OpenAI will agree.
New York Times reporting earlier this week paints a picture of a manipulative Altman — a leader who often tells people what they want to hear to impress them and support his decisions but undermines their credibility when they challenge him. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and Ilya Sutskever, a former OpenAI board member and chief scientist at the startup, both contacted former OpenAI board members to express their concerns about Altman's behavior before his ouster last year, according to The Times.
In addition to today's board appointments, OpenAI said it will adopt a new set of corporate governance guidelines, including strengthening its conflict of interest policy, establishing a whistleblower hotline “to serve as an anonymous reporting resource for all OpenAI employees and contractors” and creating additional board committees – Including a Mission and Strategy Committee “focused on executing and advancing OpenAI’s core mission.”
We've asked OpenAI for more information about its rewritten Conflict of Interest Policy and Mission and Strategy Committee and will update this post if we receive a response.
