The OpenAI board of directors "fired" founder Sam Altman (Sam Altman), an incident that has been reversed several times and is still unfolding.On the 20th local time, more than 700 company employees, including OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, signed a joint letter demanding that the remaining board members of OpenAI resign, otherwise they will join Altman's new project at Microsoft. OpenAI currently has approximately 770 employees.

After Microsoft announced the recruitment of Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, the company's stock price rose 2.05% on the 20th, hitting a 52-week high, and its market value increased by US$46.215 billion.

How does Wall Street view this "palace battle" drama? How will the turmoil of OpenAI shake the entire AI industry?

What do NYSE traders think?

Although Wall Street doesn't like uncertainty, the dramatic events caused by OpenAI's board of directors have won Wall Street's "preference." China Business News reporters communicated with several traders and felt their excitement about it.

New York Stock Exchange trader Tim Anderson told China Business News that this is a typical board power struggle and is in an industry that investors are highly concerned about. "Although OpenAI is not a listed company and does not trade stocks on any market, it has had a significant impact on the stock market, large technology stocks and artificial intelligence-related companies."

Anderson believes that OpenAI’s developments in the past few days have also significantly increased the value of companies in the AI ​​industry. "At the same time, as the leader in artificial intelligence among large technology stocks, Microsoft is doubling down on the artificial intelligence industry by hiring Altman. Investors are paying close attention to the field of artificial intelligence, and companies related to it are the focus of the market." He analyzed.

What do Silicon Valley HR experts think?

There are different opinions on the real reason why the OpenAI board fired Altman.

Dr. Tom Zhang, a senior talent expert in Silicon Valley, told reporters that he believed OpenAI’s dismissal of Altman was not a temporary move. "I don't think the board of directors can find a new CEO (Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear) within two days, and it is impossible for the board of directors to fire Altman for such a big thing without consulting external lawyers. So this matter may have been planned for at least several months," he said.

Zhang Qi believes that Sutskwei posted a tweet in October saying, "If you put intelligence above all other human qualities, you will have an unpleasant experience." In Zhang Qi's view, this may imply that the board of directors was prepared at that time, "it will take a day to freeze three feet."


But the storm has turned around again and again because Microsoft also plays a very important role in it.

"Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella handled this matter very well. In such a short period of time, under such a complex and uncertain situation, he persuaded Altman and Brockman to join Microsoft in one weekend." Zhang Qi said, "Microsoft should have been completely unaware of this incident. If these two executives had not joined Microsoft, Microsoft's market value may have dropped by at least tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars."

Will the entire AI industry enter a new turning point?

As of the press time of China Business News, OpenAI has appointed a new CEO, and Altman will most likely join Microsoft. Is this incident over? Experts interviewed by China Business News believe that this incident may bring the entire AI industry to an inflection point.

According to data from Levels.fyi, a data collection website for American technology companies, the median annual salary of OpenAI software engineers is US$925,000, of which US$300,000 is a basic salary and US$625,000 is compensation in the form of stock compensation.


Zhang Qi said: "OpenAI's salary package is very good. Part of the company's financing is used to repurchase the virtual equity in the hands of employees, but it may not be repurchased now. The 'golden handcuffs' (golden handcuffs) are gone, which will lead to the loss of talent in the company."

As OpenAI falls from the "altar", Microsoft, Google and artificial intelligence startup Anthropic are considered to be the winners. Zhang Qi speculated: "OpenAI will no longer be the only one. The next story will be that OpenAI talents leave one after another and gradually flow to Microsoft, Google or other AI companies. This is equivalent to spreading AI technology to the world, promoting the more diversified development of the AI ​​industry, and is expected to raise the level of AI research to a new level. At the same time, Google will also feel at ease, because its biggest competitor has internal problems and may recruit more talents."