The Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI had a major shift in leadership over the weekend after its board of directors abruptly ousted former CEO and co-founder Sam Altman on Nov. 17.
In the days following the board received pressure to reinstate Altman as CEO and meanwhile chief technology officer Mira Murati was appointed as interim CEO of the company.
However, on Nov. 20, three days after Altman’s departure, OpenAI announced its new CEO to be Emmett Shear. Shear is the co-founder and former CEO of the video streaming platform Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.
Emmett Shear, new CEO of OpenAI. Source: Reddit
Shortly after the announcement surfaced, Shear took to X and confirmed his acceptance of the new role with a lengthy post about his future plans for the company. He said he stepped down from Twitch due to becoming a father and did not take the decision “lightly” when approached by the OpenAI board.
Today I got a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I accepted. I had recently resigned from my role as CEO of Twitch due to the birth of my…
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) November 20, 2023
He said the process around the “removal” of Altman was, “handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust.”
According to the new CEO in the next 30 days he plans to hire a private investigator to dig through the events that led up to his hiring, speak with remaining employees and reform management and leadership.
“OpenAI’s stability and success are too important to allow turmoil to disrupt them like this,” he said. “I will endeavor to address the key concerns as well, although in many cases I believe it may take longer than a month to achieve true progress.”
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He also clarified in his post that prior to taking the role he checked the “reasoning” behind the change and stated that:
photo of Emmett Shear (red) and Sam Altman (yellow) from when they were in the original 2005 Y Combinator class together. pic.twitter.com/x2lI64e6sU
— John Coogan (@johncoogan) November 20, 2023
Shear also served as a part-time partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator and is a graduate of Yale University with a degree in Bachelor of Science with a major in computer science.
Since his appointment as replacement CEO of Altman, images have begun circulating on social media of the two executives together in a “Y Combinator” class.
Earlier this year, Shear appeared on a podcast in which he called advanced AI an “intrinsically very dangerous thing because intelligence is power.”
Hours before OpenAI named its new CEO, Big Tech giant Microsoft, a majority backer of OpenAI, announced that it would be hiring both Altman and former board member and president Greg Brockman.
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