In recent days, the high-tech industry has been thrown into turmoil following the impeachment case of the CEO of OpenAI. The board of directors of the artificial intelligence company that created ChatGPT has decided to remove founder Sam Altman. Reports suggest disagreement over the commercialization of new AI technologies led to the decision, which was later followed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s announcement that Altman and Greg Brockman would join Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.
Meanwhile, Emmett Shear, co-founder of the streaming site Twitch, has been named interim CEO of OpenAI until a permanent CEO is found. News of Altman’s ouster had an immediate impact on Microsoft shares, causing them to fall 1.7%. However, after Nadella’s announcement on Twitter, Microsoft shares rose 1.5% in opening trade.
According to stock analysts, Microsoft’s move to recruit Altman is seen as a strategy to prevent him from founding a competing start-up, working for a competitor like Google or Amazon and risking Microsoft’s leadership in artificial intelligence and the cloud. The decision was seen as a damage control move by the tech giant and aimed at mitigating potential instability at OpenAI following Altman’s ouster. This could affect the company’s commercial relationships with other companies in the industry.
The unusual corporate structure of OpenAI has raised concerns among investors about potential future takeovers or power struggles within the company. Investors may consider this as a lesson when investing in companies with similar structures in order to avoid similar scenarios in the future.
Despite the controversy surrounding his ouster from OpenAI, Altman’s new role at Microsoft is seen as strategically important to