OpenAI shocked Silicon Valley on Friday when its board of directors pushed out CEO Sam Altman following a review that found, “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”
By early Monday, the ChatGPT developer had found his interim replacement in Emmett Shear, the former cofounder and CEO of the live-streaming platform Twitch.
Shear confirmed Monday in a post on X that he will take the reins at perhaps the most influential artificial intelligence company on Earth.
Shear cofounded Twitch in 2007 alongside Justin Kan, Michael Seibel and Kyle Vogt. As CEO, he developed Twitch into a global company that rivaled YouTube in terms of control of the live-streaming industry.
Twitch would go on to be acquired by Amazon for $1 billion in 2014, and Shear would later step aside in 2022 following the birth of his child.
Shear then became a partner at Y Combinator, the startup accelerator at which Sam Altman once served as president.
The move is something of a return for Shear. Prior to Twitch, he cofounded an app called Kiko Calendar which he worked on through the 2005 Y Combinator program, according to reports.
Now, Shear inherits a volatile environment at OpenAI.
Sam Altman has already been named the chief of a new AI team at Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI.
What’s more, hundreds of employees have signed a letter threatening to leave the company if the board that ousted Altman doesn’t resign.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow him on X @andrew_kessel