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Sam Altman officially returns to OpenAI as Microsoft finally joins board

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Sam Altman addressed his employees in a company memo on Nov. 29, marking his official return to the top leadership position at OpenAI.

Sam Altman, one of the founders of OpenAI, has officially returned to office as the firm’s CEO, ending a whirlwind few weeks caused by his abrupt and unexpected temporary departure.

Addressing OpenAI employees in a company memo made public on Nov. 29, Altman confirmed that interim CEO Mira Murati will step down from her position and return to her previous role as chief technology officer.

Altman also revealed a new initial board, chaired by Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor, along with Larry Summers, who previously served as the United States Secretary of the Treasury, and Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of social question-and-answer website Quora. D’Angelo was on OpenAI’s board before the saga that unfolded in mid-November. Greg Brockman will also resume his role as OpenAI’s President.

❤️ https://t.co/9JnRmJMptH
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 30, 2023

"I have never been more excited about the future. I am extremely grateful for everyone’s hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry. I feel so, so good about our probability of success for achieving our mission," said Altman to employees.

Microsoft gets non-voting seat on OpenAI board

Altman revealed that Microsoft will also be included as a non-voting observer on the new board.

"We clearly made the right choice to partner with Microsoft and I’m excited that our new board will include them as a non-voting observer," he said.

A board observer is an individual who is permitted to attend and participate in meetings of the board of directors, but as implied, has no voting rights, acting more as an advisor.

Microsoft initially wasn't expected to be offered a seat by OpenAI, according to a Nov. 29 report by Reuters, which cited a person familiar with the matter.

This is despite Microsoft having invested $13 billion into OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, across several deals dating back to 2019.

Looking ahead, Altman said he would be focused on advancing the firm’s research plan, improving its products, and better serving customers as the top three priorities for his (technically) second stint as CEO.

The OpenAI team is irreplaceable -- I couldn’t be happier to be back at work alongside @sama and @gdb . The mission continues.
— Mira Murati (@miramurati) November 30, 2023

In the same official announcement, Taylor stressed OpenAI will "enhance the governance structure," and put together "an independent committee of the Board to oversee a review of the recent events," in effort to provide more stability to the firm. He hopes Microsoft's addition to the board will help steady the ship.

"From technology to safety to policy [...] we are pleased that this Board will include a non-voting observer for Microsoft," he said.

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L2 is crucial to Ethereum decentralization, censorship resistance, says researcher

November 9, 2022 Coin Telegraph

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Swedish researcher Eric Wall highlighted StarkNet’s influence on Ethereum’s scalability as he joins the board of the newly formed StarkNet Foundation.

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform StarkWare has officially launched the StarkNet Foundation with the introduction of a diverse board that aims to safeguard Ethereum's decentralization and censorship resistance.

Seven individuals, including key members from the Ethereum ecosystem and wider cryptocurrency space, will head up the non-profit entity. An announcement shared with Cointelegraph outlined the role of the StarkNet Foundation in ensuring the maintenance and security of StarkNet’s network as well as its development and expansion.

Cointelegraph reached out to Eric Wall to unpack his appointment to the Foundation's board. Wall is a blockchain researcher and whistleblower who has exposed systemic flaws in high-profile cryptocurrency projects. Wall also acts as an advisor on cryptocurrency to the Human Rights Foundation.

Wall highlighted systemic efforts to help Ethereum continue scaling through layer-2 innovations as key to the ongoing success of the smart contract blockchain network:

“Since Ethereum is the most important DeFi chain we have, I care a lot about making sure that it sticks to the ethos of decentralization and censorship resistance. This battle is fought at the baselayer, but must also be fought at the layers above.”

Wall told Cointelegraph that his motivation to join the Foundation was to ensure that ‘one of Ethereum’s most important second layers’ did not neglect the ethos of the underlying blockchain:

“StarkWare is probably the most important player in the ecosystem in pioneering validity proof systems that many believe are absolutely central to Ethereum’s scalability endgame, and StarkNet is the general-purpose platform leveraging that technology”

Wall highlighted the Foundation’s role in managing relationships with ecosystem partners and developers as well as allocating grants. This includes ensuring partnerships are in the best interest of StarkNet users and are aligned with ‘the fundamental ethos of neutral open-source engineering’.

The Foundation will also focus on StarkNet technology education to help developers learn how to build Decentralized Applications (DApps) using StarkWare’s proprietary STARKs (Scalable, Transparent ARgument of Knowledge) proof system.

The Foundation's board also includes StarkWare CEO and co-founder Uri Kolodny and StarkWare’s president, co-founder and computer scientist Eli Ben-Sasson. Computer scientist and StarkNet advisor Shubhangi Saraf, blockchain developer and Nethermind founder Tomasz Stańczak, former United States deputy chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin and award-winning lawyer Heather Meeker make up the rest of the leadership group.

As previously reported, StarkNet is a decentralized layer-2 validity rollup that aims to scale the Ethereum network while maintaining its security and decentralization. It addresses what is known as the ‘blockchain trilemma’ coined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

The StarkNet Foundation will manage 50.1% of the ecosystem’s initial token supply to guide the network’s allocation of resources. The funds will be used to support StarkNet’s community of users, developers and researchers, which contribute to the ecosystem by creating infrastructure, tools and applications.

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