The possibility of Ultraman returning to the position of OpenAI CEO seems to have diminished again.
On the evening of November 19th local time, two days after former CEO Sam Altman and former CEO Greg Brockman of OpenAI left the company, sources revealed that the board of directors would hire Emmett Shear as CEO to replace founder Ultraman.
Cher is an American entrepreneur known primarily as the founder and CEO of Twitch. In March of this year, Cher just left Amazon's game live streaming platform Twitch and stated that he will continue to work as a consultant for the platform. Previously, Schell worked at Twitch for over 16 years and was also one of the founders of the platform. During his university years, Cher also co founded the online calendar application Kiko with his classmates, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2006.
As of press release, OpenAI, Schell, and Ultraman have not yet responded to this matter.
Previously, sources familiar with the situation revealed to the media that Mira Murati, the interim CEO of OpenAI, plans to rehire the two people who have been fired, but the specific positions have not been determined yet. At that time, Murati was in negotiations with Adam Dangelo, the board representative and CEO of Quora. Under the leadership of the largest shareholder Microsoft and venture capital firm Thrive Capital, OpenAI investors are urging the board to resign and hoping that Ultraman will resume his position.
On the 19th, Murati commented on a love symbol under Altman's "I Love the Openai Team" tweet on the 18th, and Brockman also replied with a love symbol.
Source: X
While Murati is working hard to bring Ultraman and Brockman back to the company, OpenAI's board of directors is still searching for a new CEO to replace Ultraman for the company. According to relevant sources, OpenAI's board members have contacted at least two well-known executives from the technology industry, hoping that one of them can take over the CEO position of Ultraman.
Undoubtedly, the OpenAI team is experiencing severe division and infighting. Previously, sources familiar with the matter stated that some key leaders of OpenAI, including Murati, Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, and Chief Strategic Officer Jason Kwon, were pushing for the resignation of the board and the return of Ultraman.
At the employee meeting held on Saturday, Letcalp stated that safety was not the main reason for the board's dismissal of Ultraman, but rather to attribute it to a "communication failure".
According to insiders, Ultraman also has the support of many top research scientists within the company, who are seen as the backbone of OpenAI and a contributor to the core big language model behind ChatGPT. In order to express support for Ultraman and Brockman, at least three senior researchers at OpenAI resigned on the evening of the 17th when the news spread.
According to foreign media reports, both Ultraman and Brockman returned to the company on the 19th to participate in negotiations with the board of directors. At noon that day, Ultraman posted a photo of himself holding an OpenAI visitor card on the X (formerly Twitter) platform, and wrote in the accompanying text, "This is my first and last time wearing this kind of thing
According to insiders, Ultraman has expressed willingness to return to OpenAI, but hopes that the company will change its governance style and replace its current board members. Ultraman also sought a statement to withdraw the board's previous allegations of misconduct against him. On the afternoon of the 19th, under pressure from employees and investors, the board of directors agreed in principle to resign, but refused to formally resign and is still reviewing candidates for new directors.