Microsoft hires ousted CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI stares at mass exodus

Microsoft emerged on Monday as the big winner of the upheaval at OpenAI, hiring ousted CEO Sam Altman and other key staff of the startup to avert a potential flight to rivals and help deepen its lead in the artificial intelligence race. This move also triggered a revolt by OpenAI’s staffers, who threatened to quit the startup and join their former boss at Microsoft’s new division unless the board resigned.

Apart from Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Chief Data Scientist Ilya Sutskever and Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, about 500 members of 770 OpenAI staff in a letter said they would resign, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.