Altman won the war at OpenAI. Now comes winning the peace

CEO still widely respected in industry, but will face questions over business dealings

- Shirin Ghaffary

Mr Sam Altman has shown the world that he is not to be messed with.

Within four days of losing his job as chief executive of OpenAI in a surprise boardroom coup, the 38-year-old artificial intelligence (AI) phenom won back his position, aided by the support of 730 employees – out of the company’s 770-person workforce – who threatened to quit if the board did not bring back Mr Altman.

Anyone who has ever had a job knows that such overwhelming support for the boss is unusual.

“It’s a huge testament to the kind of CEO he is,” said Mr Alfred Lin, an investor at Sequoia Capital, a company that invested both in OpenAI and Mr Altman’s first start-up, Loopt. “There are always going to be detractors. But the fact that he got to around 95 per cent of employees signing the statement is pretty remarkable.”

In some ways, Mr Altman has come out of the episode stronger than ever, but the struggle over OpenAI is not quite over. Mr Altman did not get back his board seat and neither did a key ally, co-founder and former OpenAI president Greg Brockman, who was kicked off the board and quit his position in protest shortly after Mr Altman’s firing. One of the people who fired Mr Altman, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, remains.

Incoming board chair Bret Taylor said in a blog post on Nov 29 that the board plans to add more “qualified, diverse” members and “enhance” the governance structure of the company. Any substantial changes to the company or its board over the next few months could determine a lot about Mr Altman’s power within OpenAI over the long term.