When OpenAI’s board asked Sam Altman to return a day after they fired him, he initially felt defiant, hurt, and angry. “It took me a few minutes to snap out of it and get over the ego and emotions to then be like, ‘Yeah, of course I want to do that,’” he told me by phone on Wednesday. “Obviously, I really loved the company and had poured my life force into this for the last four and a half years full time, but really longer than that with most of my time. And we’re making such great progress on the mission that I care so much about, the mission of safe and beneficial AGI.” After an attempted boardroom coup that lasted five days, Altman officially returned as CEO of OpenAI on Wednesday. The company’s biggest investor, Microsoft, is planning to take a nonvoting board seat as well. During our interview, Altman repeatedly declined to answer the main question on everyone’s minds: exactly why he was fired to begin with. OpenAI’s new board, led by Bret Taylor, is going to conduct an independent investigation into what went down. “I very much welcome that,” Altman told me. “The board is going to do an independent review here. I very much welcome that. I don’t have much else to say now, but I’m looking forward to learning more,” Sam added.
Full inverview : Sam Altman on being fired and rehired by OpenAI.
