WHAT DOES SAM ALTMAN'S FIRING (AND QUICK REINSTATEMENT) MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF AI?

It’s been quite a week for ChatGPT-maker OpenAI — and co-founder Sam Altman.

Altman, who helped start OpenAI as a nonprofit research lab back in 2015, was removed as CEO Friday in a sudden and mostly unexplained exit that stunned the industry. And while his chief executive title was swiftly reinstated just days later, a lot of questions are still up in the air.

If you’re just catching up on the OpenAI saga and what’s at stake for the artificial intelligence space as a whole, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s a rundown of what you need to know.

WHO IS SAM ALTMAN AND HOW DID HE RISE TO FAME?

Altman is co-founder of OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company behind ChatGPT (yes, the chatbot that’s seemingly everywhere today — from schools to health care).

The explosion of ChatGPT since its arrival one year ago propelled Altman into the spotlight of the rapid commercialization of generative AI — which can produce novel imagery, passages of text and other media. And as he became Silicon Valley’s most sought-after voice on the promise and potential dangers of this technology, Altman helped transform OpenAI into a world-renowned startup. 

But his position at OpenAI hit some rocky turns in a whirlwind that was the past week. Altman was fired as CEO Friday — and days later, he was back on the job with a new board of directors.

Within that time, Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has rights to its existing technology, helped drive Altman’s return, quickly hiring him as well as another OpenAI co-founder and former president, Greg Brockman, who quit in protest after the CEO’s ousting. Meanwhile, hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to resign.