What Happened At OpenAI?
Why did OpenAI’s Board remove CEO Sam Altman?
The Board said in its statement that it lost confidence in Mr. Altman’s ability to lead OpenAI as Mr. Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board”. OpenAI did not provide detail as to what Mr. Altman was not consistently candid about. My guess is that Mr. Altman may have told OpenAI’s Board that he expected many customer pilot deals to evolve into larger commercial deals when in fact that was not the case. For example, Mr. Altman may have suggested that 80% of pilot deals in the pipeline would convert to meaningful revenue, when in fact the real conversion number may have been 10-20%. These are hypotheticals on my part for illustrative purposes. My view is that Generative AI is more hype than substance when it comes to near-term revenue prospects. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati was named interim CEO.