The Winners and Losers in King Sam’s OpenAI Kingdom

tech.hindustantimes.com:

After almost five days, he's back: 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. We go into the Thanksgiving break wondering what happens next, and what it will mean for the future — not just for OpenAI, but AI more broadly.

A new interim board for OpenAI has been formed. It includes Bret Taylor, former Salesforce Inc. co-CEO; Larry Summers, a Clinton-era Treasury secretary; and Adam D'Angelo, CEO of Quora Inc., who stays on from the previous board. More will join them — the finalized board will have up to nine directors in total. We'll be able to draw bigger conclusions about OpenAI's direction once we know who they are.

For now, the simplest interpretation is that this is a huge win for Microsoft Corp. and its CEO, Satya Nadella. The $2.8 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're not the only winners. Here's my take on who's come out on top after this week. Given the spectacular pace of events, however, it's subject to change.

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 getting the new subsidiary up to speed may have been enormous. The whole operation would have become mired in lawsuits as other OpenAI backers