Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and chief executive officer said “Microsoft just acquired OpenAI without acquiring OpenAI. And made it fully for-profit without making it fully for-profit. Satya plays 4D Chess,” in a Twitter post.
Microsoft just acquired OpenAI without acquiring OpenAI. And made it fully for-profit without making it fully for-profit. Satya plays 4D Chess.
— Gaurav Munjal (@gauravmunjal) November 20, 2023
Microsoft hired Altman, just days after he was abruptly fired by OpenAI’s board of directors for not being “consistently candid in his communications with the board.”
Microsoft is OpenAI’s biggest investor, betting over $13 billion dollars so far on the ChatGPT developer.
Emmett Shear, former CEO and co-founder of video game streaming platform Twitch, will take over as ceo of OpenAI.
OpenAI, founded in 2015, started out as a non-profit venture with Elon Musk as one of its co-chairs. But the Tesla boss quit the group in 2018, due to conflict of interest.
In 2019, the company became a ‘capped-profit’ business model.
Since then, OpenAI has become known for generative AI tools after releasing its wildly popular ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. According to a Bloomberg report, Altman and other board members were at odds over how to make OpenAI a successful business. Board members were concerned about the speed at which Altman wanted OpenAI to roll out new products while neglecting AI safety concerns.
Nadella allegedly pledged his support for Altman immediately after he was fired by the board.
Microsoft’s support Altman could be the huge investment the Windows maker has made in the startup and the role of OpenAI technology in improving the company’s products.
In the last year, Microsoft has used OpenAI technology to make improvements to its products, including its Bing search engine, which now runs on OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Windows 11 co-pilot.