OpenAI’s dramatic U-turn: The winners and losers

San Francisco – After almost five days, he is back:

Mr Sam Altman returns to OpenAI as its chief executive officer,

the very same position he had held just 110 or so hours prior, in what will come to be known in Silicon Valley as “the time before OpenAI imploded”.

But this saga has only reached the end of the beginning. People are wondering what happens next, and what it will mean for the future – not just for OpenAI, but also artificial intelligence (AI) more broadly.

A new interim board for OpenAI has been formed. It includes Mr Bret Taylor, former Salesforce co-CEO; Professor Larry Summers, a Clinton-era Treasury secretary; and Mr Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora, who stays on from the previous board. More will join them – the finalised board will have up to nine directors in total. Bigger conclusions about OpenAI’s direction can be drawn once they are known.

For now, the simplest interpretation is that this is a huge win for Microsoft and its CEO, Mr Satya Nadella. The US$2.8 trillion (S$3.8 trillion) tech giant, which relies heavily on OpenAI as its partner in the AI revolution, has successfully protected its investment without having to hire around 700 OpenAI engineers, as had once seemed plausible or even probable.

They are not the only winners. Here is a take on who has come out on top after this week. Given the spectacular pace of events, however, it is subject to change.

Winners

Satya Nadella: Had OpenAI collapsed, serious questions would have been raised about how Microsoft could have so carelessly left itself exposed. Even if it could hire much of OpenAI’s talent, the amount of time and money that would have been spent on getting the new subsidiary up to speed may have been enormous. The whole operation would have become mired in lawsuits as other OpenAI backers sought to claw back whatever value they could from their investments. On top of that, an influx of new talent, stuffed into the corner of a Microsoft office, would not have won Mr Nadella many favours from within his own rank and file, still reeling from recent layoffs. Guess we will never know.

Mr Nadella could have no doubt done without the stress, but he has absolutely come out smelling of roses. “We’re never going to get back into a situation where we get surprised like this ever again,” he told tech journalist Kara Swisher on a podcast on Nov 20. I will bet they won’t.

Sam Altman: With a fresh mandate to press ahead with his vision of where AI should go, the face of the AI revolution is now the unquestionable decision-maker at OpenAI. Can anyone stand in the way of King Sam the Unsackable? Emboldened by new allies, such as Mr Taylor now on the board, Mr Altman will have more protection and likely much less resistance to his commercial instincts. It always seemed unlikely that Mr Altman would ever be satisfied as a mere employee of a big tech company – he is a start-up guy at heart.

The simplicity of profit: This entire affair has been a win for those who think the idea of a non-profit owning a for-profit entity is a folly, serving only to introduce unpredictable motives and irrational thinking (such as firing your world-famous CEO). Regardless of the merits of the board’s choice, the undeniable fact is that the power of OpenAI’s board crumbled once the real heavies – those who have money, and data centres – began throwing their weight around.

Sure, OpenAI could have existed, and continue to exist, in a different form without the multibillion-dollar backing, but it would have meant a wholly less successful and lavish affair. (Axios’ description of Microsoft as being OpenAI’s “sugar daddy” was particularly amusing, and depressingly accurate.)

Losers

The AI competition: What looked set to be a hiring free-for-all for the best and brightest in AI talent has been stopped in its tracks. Pleas from Salesforce (“Send me your CV directly,” said CEO Marc Benioff), Nvidia and others do not seem likely to have drawn much talent from OpenAI’s ranks. And while potential clients of OpenAI were looking into alternatives because of the turmoil, the resolution may have come just quickly enough to stop any meaningful number of them jumping ship.

Emmett Shear: The former Twitch CEO must have thought he had hit the jackpot. Just months after leaving Amazon.com – which acquired Twitch in 2014 – Mr Shear suddenly found himself interim CEO of the most talked-about start-up in the world. This opportunity likely seemed somewhat less exciting when much of his workforce reportedly flicked a middle-finger emoji in response to his surprise appointment. Once it became clear that Mr Shear took the job without having clarity of what had transpired with Mr Altman, things turned more than a little embarrassing. Then we learnt he was the board’s third choice. It is unclear what role he will play now.

Effective altruists: It has been a damaging time for effective altruists, those people who were meant to be a check on corporate power and focused on doing good – or, more to the point, not doing bad. OpenAI’s board was set up in such a way that concerns over the technology, and its possible impact on the safety of the human race, would be considered alongside the obvious commercial opportunity. After this week, those voices now seem to have been pushed out from OpenAI.

The human race: See above. BLOOMBERG