OpenAI president Greg Brockman said the five days in November 2023 after CEO Sam Altman was abruptly fired felt like a revolution.
“I cannot capture the intensity of this time,” Brockman said during an episode of the Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin podcast published on Thursday.
On November 17, 2023, OpenAI’s board ousted Altman and removed Brockman as board chairman. Brockman said he learned of the decision during a Google Meet video call — and resigned that day from his position as president.
“For me, I knew in that moment it wasn’t right,” he said about Altman’s firing. “After hanging up the call, I told my wife and said, ‘We have to leave.’ And she said, ‘Yes, we do.'”
Their ousters sparked a “chaotic” frenzy, Brockman added, in which OpenAI employees and investors, fueled by “caffeine energy,” mobilized nearly instantly to bring their bosses back.
A company in flux
The board initially appointed CTO Mira Murati as interim CEO. Days later, she was replaced by former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear — a move Brockman said made the company go “wild.”
“People started to leave the office — just streaming out of the office,” he said. “Everyone was like, ‘We just need to be out of here and be gone.'”
Employees canceled their Thanksgiving plans and gathered at homes around the Bay Area, packing into backyards to give speeches about what to do next, Brockman said.
Brockman said about 95% of OpenAI employees signed a petition demanding the board reinstate both him and Altman. He said the show of support was so overwhelming that it temporarily crashed Google Docs.
“They had to have some people who were designated as the person to add to the Google Doc,” he said. “It was a whole crazy thing.”
At the same time, he said competing companies were trying to scoop up OpenAI’s talent. Even Altman was thinking about starting his own company — and Brockman said Microsoft was interested in investing.
“Everyone was trying to figure out, ‘Is this company somewhere I want to be?'” Brockman said.
Despite the uncertainty, Brockman said the moment also felt rejuvenating.
“It was great energy, honestly,” he said. “We were so jazzed about this because it was an opportunity to — really anything that we wanted to rethink, now was the moment.”
Altman was reinstated as CEO on November 22 after intense pressure from investors and employees.
Lessons learned
Looking back, Brockman said his biggest lesson was how to handle internal disagreement.
“I think that one thing we did wrong was that we let conflict brew,” he said. “People disagree, that’s normal, that happens — but if you let it fester, that’s always going to be more painful down the road.”
Brockman added that the company now has a “feeling of mortality” that keeps employees motivated.
“It’s not pre-ordained that it succeeds,” he said. “The thing that is most likely to get in the way of success is tripping over ourselves.”
Brockman also defended Altman’s character, calling him a “good person” who is “very misunderstood by the world.”
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