Sam Altman: OpenAI will have three priorities to address

Original: Sam Altman

Compiled by: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

This morning, OpenAI officially announced the return of Sam Altman.

In the return announcement, Sam Altman shared an open letter, in which he mentioned some important changes in OpenAI's management and expressed gratitude to the employees and partners who actively maintained OpenAI during the past half month's "turmoil," as well as revealing the focus of OpenAI's work in the near future.

Below is the full text of Sam Altman's return announcement, compiled by Odaily Planet Daily.

I will return to OpenAI as CEO, and Mira will resume her role as CTO. The new initial board will consist of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.

Note: Mira was the CTO of OpenAI before the incident and briefly served as interim CEO afterward. Among the board members, only Adam D'Angelo was a member of the original board; Bret Taylor and Larry are new members. Bret Taylor previously served as co-CEO of Salesforce, and Larry Summers is a former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

I have never been more excited about the future. I am very grateful for everyone's hard work in an unprecedented and highly uncertain situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit will make OpenAI stand out in the industry. I believe we can accomplish our mission.

Before discussing what comes next, I want to share some gratitude.

I love and respect Ilya; I consider him a guiding light in this field and a treasure for humanity. I harbor no ill will towards him. Although Ilya will no longer serve as a board member, we hope to maintain a working relationship and are discussing how to keep him involved at OpenAI.

Note: Ilya was the Chief Scientist at OpenAI before the incident and is widely regarded as a central figure in the previous events.

I am very grateful to Adam, Tasha, and Helen for working hard with us to ultimately reach this most mission-aligned solution. I am glad to continue collaborating with Adam and sincerely thank Tasha and Helen for the tremendous energy they invested in this process.

Note: Adam D'Angelo, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner were all original board members of OpenAI, and now only Adam remains on the board.

I also want to thank Emmett, who played a key and constructive role in helping us achieve the final outcome. Emmett's dedication to the safety of artificial intelligence and balancing interests is impressive.

Note: Emmett Shear is a co-founder of Twitch and briefly served as CEO of OpenAI after the incident.

Mira performed exceptionally throughout the entire event; she selflessly served the mission, the team, and the company from start to finish. She is an outstanding leader, and without her, there would be no OpenAI. Thank you, Mira.

The entire leadership team (Mira, Brad, Jason, Che, Hannah, Diane, Anna, Bob, Srinivas, Matt, Lilian, Miles, Jan, Wojciech, John, Jonathan, Pat, and many more) is clearly well-prepared to continue operating the company in my absence. Someone once said that one of the best ways to evaluate a CEO is to see how you select and cultivate potential successors, and on that front, I seem to have done much better than I imagined. In my view, the company is in the hands of an excellent group of people, and I hope everyone recognizes this clearly. Thank you all.

Jakub, Szymon, and Aleksander are all outstanding talents, and I am glad they are rejoining OpenAI to push our research forward. Thank you.

Note: Jakub, Szymon, and Aleksander are senior researchers at OpenAI, and all three left OpenAI with Sam after the incident.

Salute to all of you. I believe that the story of this journey will certainly be written into a book, and I hope the first sentence of the book will be about how amazing the entire team is. We went through all of this without losing a single employee. You steadfastly supported each other, the company, and the mission of AI. For the team building safe AGI, the most important thing is the ability to handle pressure and uncertainty while maintaining good judgment throughout the process, and you all scored the highest. Thank you all.

Throughout the entire event, the performance of Satya, Kevin, Amy, and Brad as partners was incredible. They consistently adhered to the right approach and have always been our support; if we could not achieve our primary goal (the return), they welcomed all of us to join them at any time. Clearly, our choice to partner with Microsoft was the right one, and I am glad they will join our new board as non-voting observers.

Note: Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft, Kevin Scott is the CTO of Microsoft, Amy Hood is the CFO of Microsoft, and Brad Lightcap is the COO of OpenAI.

To our partners and users, thank you for your continued support. We truly felt your support and love, which helped us through this difficult time. We did not lose a single customer, and this fact will motivate us to work even harder; we are all excited to return to work.

Will Hurd, Brian Chesky, Bret Taylor, and Larry Summers put everything aside and made incredible contributions to support the mission. I don't know how they managed to do so well, but they truly did. Thank you.

Note: Will Hurd was an early board member of OpenAI but had previously stepped down to run for U.S. President. Brian Chesky is the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb and an early investor in OpenAI.

Ollie also set everything aside during this time and did everything possible to help; he provided unconditional love and support. Thank you, I love you, Ollie.

Note: Oliver Mulherin is a software engineer and Sam's boyfriend.

So what comes next? We have three priorities to address.

First, to advance our research agenda and further invest in full-stack safety work, which has always been key to our efforts. Our research roadmap is clear, and it is now in the spotlight; I can feel the excitement from all of you, and we will turn this crisis into an opportunity. I will work with Mira to advance this effort.

Second, to continue improving and deploying our products to serve our customers, giving people the opportunity to experience the benefits and prospects of artificial intelligence and the chance to actively shape AI. We still believe that excellent products are the best way to achieve this goal. I will work with Brad, Jason, and Anna to ensure our commitments to global users, customers, partners, and governments remain unwavering.

Bret, Larry, and Adam will focus on building a board with diverse perspectives, improving our governance structure, and overseeing an independent review of the recent events. I look forward to working closely with them to ensure everyone can see OpenAI's stability. I am very excited to work with you all to accomplish the mission of building beneficial AGI ------ with the world's most outstanding team, to achieve the world's greatest mission. Love you all.

Sam Altman