Who is the new interim Chief of OpenAI Emmett Shear succeeding Sam Altman?

OpenAI's new chief: ChatGPT maker OpenAI's Board of Directors has appointed former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear as the interim Chief Executive Officer. This marks the third change in leadership over the last three days since Sam Altman was removed as CEO by the board. 

As per Bloomberg, Shear won over the directors as he recognised the existential threats AI posed. Emmett Shear has also confirmed his appointment in X (formerly Twitter) and called it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

Today I got a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I accepted. I had recently resigned from my role as CEO of Twitch due to the birth of my…

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) November 20, 2023

In his post, he also outlined a three point plan for the next 30 days:

• Hire an independent investigator to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report.
• Continue to speak to as many OpenAI  employees, partners, investors, and customers as possible, take good notes, and share the key takeaways.
• Reform the management and leadership team in light of recent departures into an effective force to drive results for customers. 

"Depending on the results everything we learn from these, I will drive changes in the organization — up to and including pushing strongly for significant governance changes if necessary", he added in his post. 

Shear's appointment comes after negotiations with the OpenAI board to bring Sam Altman back as CEO fell apart.

Sam Altman along with his colleagues have now joined Microsoft to lead its new advanced AI research team.

Who is Emmett Shear? 

Born in 1983, Shear graduated from Yale University in 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Until March of this year, he served as the CEO of Twitch - the gaming streaming site of Amazon.com Inc.

Also Read: OpenAI board hires Former Twitch CEO Shear to succeed Sam Altman: Report

Shear co-founded Twitch - a live video streaming platform in 2003. Shear took Twitch — the live-streaming site he co-founded with Justin Kan, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt in 2007 — from originally broadcasting the life of Kan 24/7, to a worldwide phenomenon

In August 2011, he became the CEO of the company before Amazon acquired the platform for nearly $1 billion in 2014. During his tenure he faced many legal battles as streamers believed that the platform was not defending their interests. 

He was later appointed as a part-time advisor to companies at Y Combinator, a startup run by Sam Altman, from 2014 to 2019. As per Bloomberg, Shear is also said to have links to the effective altruism movement, which is skeptical about the risks posed by artificial intelligence. This also resonated with the OpenAI board who had apprehensions of Sam Altman was moving too quickly, without sufficient concern to the safety implications of a technology that, left unchecked, could create content capable of harming the public.