Former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is now the interim CEO of OpenAI. Shear disclosed on X (formerly Twitter) that he was given the "once-in-a-lifetime" job and accepted it after discussing the matter with his family.
Shear resigned from Twitch, which he co-founded in 2008 when his son was born. Despite enjoying his time away from full-time employment, he accepted the OpenAI position because he believes the company is one of the most crucial entities in existence.
OpenAI Crisis
The decision comes at a tumultuous time for OpenAI, marked by the recent removal of Sam Altman, the former CEO. Emmett Shear acknowledged in his tweet that the handling of Altman's removal has damaged trust within the organization.
OpenAI board's abrupt dismissal of Altman and the resignation of the firm's president, Greg Brockman, from the board on Friday may have sparked a crisis, but Emmet Shear's assumption of the new position, which ran counter to remarks made by OpenAI executives to staff on Saturday and early Sunday, could worsen the matter, according to The Information.
Brockman, a key engineer behind the OpenAI successes, resigned later that day, followed by three senior researchers, threatening to set off a broader wave of departures to OpenAI's rivals, including Google, and to a new AI venture Altman has been plotting in the wake of his firing.
To address the situation, Emmett Shear outlined a three-point plan for the next 30 days, which includes hiring an independent investigator to examine the entire process leading to the recent events, continuing dialogue with employees and stakeholders, and restructuring the management and leadership teams to enhance effectiveness.
"Depending on the results and everything we learn from them, I will drive changes in the organization-up to and including pushing strongly for significant governance changes if necessary. I will be rolling these out as they become clear over the 30 days. OpenAI's stability and success are too important to allow turmoil to disrupt them like this. I will endeavor to address the key concerns as well, although in many cases I believe it may take longer than a month to achieve true progress," he tweeted.
Shear Acknowledges Sam Altman's 'Incredible' Efforts
Emmett Shear emphasized his commitment to OpenAI's stability and success, expressing respect for the work of Sam Altman and the entire OpenAI team. He assured me that he would work diligently to protect and further grow the company.
"I have nothing but respect for what Sam and the entire OpenAI team have built. It's not just an incredible research project and software product, but an incredible company," he stated.
As Shear takes on this new role, he pledges transparency but also notes that not all internal communications will be made public. Additionally, he clarified that the board did not remove Sam Altman over "any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that." He noted that only accepted the role with their support for commercializing OpenAI's models.
Shear concluded the X post, promising further updates and information in the coming days.
Today I got a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I accepted. I had recently resigned from my role as CEO of Twitch due to the birth of my…
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) November 20, 2023
The Washington Post reported that, according to a source, the board's decision to remove Sam Altman as OpenAI's CEO was not based on concerns about the company's products or Altman's approach to commercializing AI. Instead, the board sees it as a "challenge to oppose the talented, powerful, and well-liked chief executive" and believes that pressure on Altman will rise as the company approaches its goal of building artificial general intelligence.
Talks of Sam Altman's return and board replacement with figures like Brian Chesky and Sheryl Sandberg were considered but eventually broke down late Sunday, leading to Shear's appointment as interim CEO. OpenAI's spokesperson and both Shear and Altman declined to comment.
According to The Verge, OpenAI has become among the fastest-growing services in history with the launch of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Sam Altman recently revealed that the large language model has over 100 million weekly users.
