OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said Friday he has resigned from the company, hours after the Microsoft-backed giant abruptly fired CEO Sam Altman and confirmed Brockman would remain at the startup. Brockman’s sudden departure adds to today’s uncertainty at OpenAI, in the wake of the first developer conference led by Altman.
“I am so proud of what we have all built together since we started in my apartment 8 years ago. We have gone through difficult and wonderful times together, and accomplished so much despite all the reasons that made it impossible,” Brockman wrote in a letter to the OpenAI team. Today’s news, I resigned. I sincerely wish you everything but the best. I still believe in the mission of creating safe artificial general intelligence that benefits all of humanity.
OpenAI previously said Brockman would step down as chairman of the board, but would remain at the company. Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, is a confidant of the former OpenAI CEO.
OpenAI, Brockman, and Microsoft, which is not on the startup’s board but owns roughly half the company, remain tight-lipped about what led to Altman’s ouster from the startup, whose big language model launched/supercharged the AI race.
The pair’s exit sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley. Altman has been the public face of the startup, which is not only widely appreciated as leading the current AI race, but in less than a year has also taken over as kingmaker for countless other startups anchored on OpenAI’s offerings.
Earlier Friday, OpenAI said Altman left the company after losing the confidence of the board of directors. OpenAI said Altman was leaving the company after a “deliberative review process” conducted by the board concluded that he “was not consistently honest in his communications” with the board, which hindered “his ability to exercise his responsibilities.”
The announcement comes less than two weeks after OpenAI held its first developer conference, where Altman said ChatGPT had amassed 100 million users. “We love you guys,” Microsoft President Satya Nadella, who was the chief guest at the conference, said. In a later interview with the Financial Times, Altman said he expected to raise “more” from Microsoft and other investors in the future.
“We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver our innovation agenda and exciting product roadmap; we remain committed to our partnership, to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world,” Nadella said in a statement on Friday.