Emmet Shear, former Twitch CEO and co-founder, has been appointed as the AI startup OpenAI’s interim CEO by the board of directors. The action comes as the company’s investors, including Microsoft, Thrive Capital, and Global Management, asked for Sam Altman to be reinstated as CEO. Altman had stated that today would be his last day negotiating with OpenAI’s board. According to an internal memo from the OpenAI board obtained by the New York Times, “the board firmly stands by its decision as the only path to advance and defend the mission of OpenAI.”
“Put simply, Sam’s behavior and lack of transparency in his interactions with the board undermined the board’s ability to effectively supervise the company in the manner it was mandated to do,” the memo added. Shear was the CEO of Twitch (a company he co-founded that was eventually acquired by Amazon in 2014), where he spent over a decade building the firm from Justin. tv into the world’s most successful video game broadcasting service. From 2014 to 2019, he worked as a part-time advisor to entrepreneurs at Y Combinator, a startup led by Sam Altman.
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said he “looks forward to getting to know” Emmett Shear
Shear has ties to the effective altruism movement, which is skeptical of the threats posed by artificial intelligence, according to a Bloomberg story. Effective altruists have envisioned a variety of scenarios in which powerful AI systems could be utilized to cause significant and widespread harm. Speaking on the likelihood of a hyper-intelligent AI escaping human control, Shear stated (as quoted by the Wall Street Journal): “It’s like a universe-destroying bomb… It’s horrible in a sense that renders global warming irrelevant.”
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said he “looks forward to getting to know” Emmett Shear, shortly after he was appointed as the new interim CEO of OpenAI. Nadella wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them. We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”