OpenAI’s board of directors approached the CEO of rival company Anthropic about replacing their current chief, Sam Altman, and potentially merging the two AI startups. However, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei declined both offers. This news comes after OpenAI’s board ousted Altman and began searching for his successor. The board has since offered ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear the position of interim chief, which he accepted. Altman, on the other hand, has agreed to join Microsoft along with other key personnel from OpenAI. This has led to a significant backlash, with almost all of OpenAI’s employees threatening to quit, including one of its executives on the board. The co-founders of Anthropic, who were previously executives at OpenAI, left the company due to disagreements over AI’s safe development and governance. Anthropic has received investments from Google and Amazon, and its AI models have competed with OpenAI’s GPT series.
