The 72-Hour Window
Satya Nadella and the OpenAI crisis
By Rehearsal Pedagogy Initiative
Examine strategic dependence when investment does not confer control. Students assess Microsoft’s influence during OpenAI’s leadership crisis and weigh preserving the partnership against employing its researchers directly.
- Format
- Reflective case
- Discipline
- Strategy
- Duration
- 80-minute session, with pre-class reading
- Length
- 16 pages
Teaching materials
Teaching notes and complete teaching materials require approved teaching access.
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Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, had described the relationship with Microsoft as the "best bromance in tech". OpenAI's structure was deliberately designed to limit investor control. Microsoft's minority stake was in a capped-profit company that OpenAI's non-profit board controlled through a for-profit subsidiary, and the board could remove any chief executive without prior warning.
On Friday 17 November 2023 Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, learned of Altman's firing about a minute before the public announcement, according to Axios. On Sunday The Verge reported that Nadella was mediating while Altman and Greg Brockman, a fellow co-founder, negotiated their possible return, and late that day the board replaced Mira Murati, whom it had named interim chief executive, with Emmett Shear.
Many OpenAI employees had publicly backed Altman. Nadella could continue pressing the board to reinstate him. He could also announce that Microsoft was hiring Altman and Brockman, either outright or in a way that still let Altman return to OpenAI if the board reversed its decision. Learners write in this edition as they read.
Includes an interactive artefact or workbook to support the learner’s thinking.*
*Some artefacts need AI access, available through Rehearsal OS.
Learning objectives
- Test your first account of Microsoft's position when Altman was fired against the terms of the structure Microsoft had invested in.
- Explain how much pressure the response you choose for Microsoft would put on OpenAI's board, given how its board and staff could read it.
- Review whether your expectations on Sunday evening came true for the reasons you gave, and how much they depended on second-hand reports.