en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman
2 corrections found
OpenAI was initially founded as a nonprofit organization by Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Infosys, and YC Research.
This mixes up OpenAI’s founders with its donors, and incorrectly includes Microsoft as a founder. OpenAI’s 2015 launch post lists specific founding members separately from donors, while Microsoft’s partnership began in 2019.
Full reasoning
OpenAI’s own 2015 launch announcement distinguishes founding members from donors. It names Sam Altman and Elon Musk as co-chairs, Greg Brockman as CTO, Ilya Sutskever as research director, and additional founding members such as John Schulman and Wojciech Zaremba. In a separate sentence, it says that Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, AWS, Infosys, and YC Research were donating to support OpenAI.
That means the article’s sentence is incorrect in two ways:
- It treats several donors/supporters (Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, AWS, Infosys, YC Research) as if they were founders.
- It includes Microsoft in the founding list, even though Microsoft’s official partnership and $1 billion investment with OpenAI was announced in July 2019, years after OpenAI was founded in December 2015.
So this sentence conflates OpenAI’s founding team with people and organizations that later funded or partnered with it.
2 sources
- OpenAI forms exclusive computing partnership with Microsoft to build new Azure AI supercomputing technologies | Microsoft
Microsoft announced its OpenAI partnership and $1 billion investment on July 22, 2019, showing Microsoft was not a 2015 founder of OpenAI.
- Introducing OpenAI | OpenAI
OpenAI’s 2015 launch post lists founding members separately from supporters, and says Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, AWS, Infosys, and YC Research were donating to support OpenAI.
On November 20, the board reached an agreement where most of the existing member departed, an independent investigation into Altman's conduct was planned and Altman and Brockman returned to their roles.
This timeline is off. On November 20, 2023, Microsoft said Altman and Brockman were joining Microsoft and OpenAI named Emmett Shear interim CEO; OpenAI did not announce an agreement in principle for Altman’s return until late November 21, with his return formalized on November 29.
Full reasoning
The sentence places Altman and Brockman’s return on November 20, 2023, but reporting and OpenAI’s own announcements show that was not the date of the agreement.
On November 20, Microsoft announced that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman would join Microsoft, and OpenAI installed Emmett Shear as interim CEO. Reuters described those appointments as having been settled late Sunday, which means OpenAI had not yet reached the agreement described in this sentence.
OpenAI’s public statement that it had reached an "agreement in principle" for Altman to return as CEO came late on November 21, 2023. His return was then formally documented by OpenAI on November 29, 2023, when the company published leadership messages confirming Altman as CEO and Brockman as president.
So the article compresses multiple events into the wrong date: November 20 was the Microsoft/Emmett Shear moment, not the date when Altman and Brockman had already returned to their roles.
3 sources
- OpenAI appoints new boss as Sam Altman joins Microsoft in Silicon Valley twist | Reuters via Investing.com
Reuters reported on November 19-20, 2023 that Altman and Brockman were joining Microsoft and that Emmett Shear had been appointed interim CEO of OpenAI.
- Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board | OpenAI
OpenAI’s official post is dated November 29, 2023 and confirms Altman as CEO, Brockman as president, and the new initial board.
- OpenAI brings Sam Altman back as CEO days after ouster | CNBC
CNBC reported that OpenAI announced early on November 22 that Altman would return as CEO, after Microsoft had said on Monday that he would join the company.