OpenAI has overhauled its board without offering seats to its biggest investors, including Microsoft, Thrive Capital, and Khosla Ventures. Now, sources say (via Reuters and The Information) that the new board has no plans to offer seats to outside investors who have poured hundreds of millions into OpenAI.
The company brought back co-founder and CEO Sam Altman last week after the previous board controversially ousted him. In reconstituting the board, OpenAI appointed former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo.
Microsoft is OpenAI's most significant backer, investing over $10 billion. Khosla Ventures was an early investor, while Thrive Capital led a recent funding round that valued OpenAI at over $80 billion. The move signals that OpenAI's new board wants to focus on its mission of developing beneficial AI, rather than maximizing profits for investors.
We've previously reported that OpenAI employees believe they've made a big leap in AI, but with safety concerns. "In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter," Reuters wrote.
But some analysts say shutting out key backers like Microsoft is short-sighted. As OpenAI's top financial supporter, Microsoft will want a say in the company's strategic direction. OpenAI's structure as a non-profit overseeing a for-profit business may also face challenges without input from commercial stakeholders.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, on the other hand, had called for governance changes and hinted that he wanted a seat on the board. "We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so and obviously that depends on the people of OpenAI," Nadella said last week. Microsoft also hired several OpenAI employees to join that company to form a new AI team.
"We will wait until the board officially says something," a Microsoft spokeperson said in response to a question about the OpenAI board.
Sources: Reuters and The Information
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