Thị trường công nghệ đã ồn ào với sự kiện rút tháng của 4 thành viên Hội đồng quản trị tại OpenAI, một trong những công ty khởi nghiệp phát triển nhanh nhất ở Silicon Valley. Sự vụ này đã bắt đầu vào Thứ Sáu vừa qua và kết thúc vào ngày hôm nay, khi Sam Altman – CEO của OpenAI đã trở lại với tư cách là một hệ thống quản lý tạm thời, cùng với một hội đồng quản trị mới có 3 người. Để có được quyết định này, hai pihyên gần với cuộc đàm phán đã tâm niệm rằng số lượng thành viên trong hội đồng quản trị sẽ được mở rộng trong thời gian tới, nhưng con số cụ thể không được tiết lộ.
Sự việc này đã đánh dấu bước tiến mới của OpenAI, cùng với việc tập trung vào quá trình phân tích cấu trúc của công ty. Vào sự việc này, ba thành viên của Hội đồng cũ, Adam D’Angelo, Bret Taylor và Lawrence H. Summers đã rời khỏi OpenAI.
Tuy nhiên, một điều đáng chú ý là sự thiếu đa dạng trong HĐQT của OpenAI, khi hai người tham gia cuộc đàm phán phủ nhận rằng giới tính và sự đa dạng không có vai trò quan trọng trong quá trình đàm phán. Một trong các ràng buộc quan trọng trong quá trình này là số lượng ứng viên lớn chủ yếu là người da trắng và nam giới. Tuy nhiên, HĐQT tạm thời dự kiến sẽ trở nên đa dạng hơn khi mở rộng ở thời gian tới.
Sự kiện này được đánh dấu bởi những diễn biến khá căng thẳng, và hứa hẹn một tương lai mới tại OpenAI.
#OpenAI #HĐQT #CEO #công nghệ #đa dạng
Nguồn: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/technology/open-ai-board-shakeup.html
For much of the past year, OpenAI’s board of directors has been criticized as too small and too divided to effectively govern one of the fastest-growing start-ups in Silicon Valley history.
On Friday, the board’s dysfunction spilled into public view when four of its members fired Sam Altman, OpenAI’s popular and powerful chief executive. The dismissal uncorked five turbulent days, as Mr. Altman rallied almost all of the company’s 770 employees to lobby for the board’s resignation and his reinstatement.
Mr. Altman, 38, returned to the company on Tuesday night, after days of haggling over his job and over the makeup of the board.
The board and Mr. Altman’s allies discussed more than a half dozen options for its future. They considered a board size of three to seven members and discussed about 30 candidates, including Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs and founder of the Emerson Collective, and Brian Chesky, the chief executive of Airbnb. The departing board wanted to be sure the replacements would be independent thinkers and experienced enough to stand up to Mr. Altman.
On Tuesday evening, both sides agreed to create a provisional, three-person board. It is expected to expand in the coming months, two people close to the negotiations said, but the exact number was unclear. The new group will be responsible for analyzing the structure of OpenAI, the ChatGPT chatbot developer, which started as a nonprofit in 2015 but later added a for-profit subsidiary.
Who is off the board?
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Adam D’Angelo: An early Facebook executive and a co-founder of the question site Quora, Mr. D’Angelo was one of the board members who ousted Mr. Altman. He was the board’s main leader in negotiations and held out for concessions from Mr. Altman during the tense back and forth, two people familiar with the talks said.
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Bret Taylor: A fixture of Silicon Valley technical circles and a former Facebook and Salesforce executive, Mr. Taylor was seen during negotiations as a neutral party, three people familiar with the discussions said. He is well regarded among the technorati and is often thought of as a kind of mediator in high-pressure situations. Last year, as a board chairman at Twitter, he was instrumental in negotiating the platform’s $44 billion sale to Elon Musk.
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Lawrence H. Summers: One of the country’s most prominent economists, Mr. Summers was a late addition to the list of potential board candidates and critical to ending the impasse over how to proceed because he was believed to be someone who would stand up to Mr. Altman, two of the people familiar with the talks said. Mr. Summers served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and was president of Harvard. He has been speaking out about the potential for artificial intelligence to displace workers, but his reputation has been damaged over the years. While leading Harvard, he said women might lack an intrinsic aptitude for math and science.
Where is the diversity?
Gender and diversity didn’t play a role in deliberations about the board, two of the people said. At various points during negotiations, there were permutations of the board that would have kept Ms. Toner or Ms. McCauley involved.
One of the people involved in the negotiations said that the most important thing was to get a resolution, and that achieving one had some constraints, including that the pool of candidates was largely white and male. The provisional board is expected to become more diverse as it expands in the coming months.
