According to Bloomberg, Microsoft executive Dee Templeton has joined the OpenAI board of directors as a non-voting observer.
According to Templeton's LinkedIn profile, she joined Microsoft in 1998 and became the first female technology employee in the company's New Zealand office. Templeton has been with Microsoft for more than 25 years. In her current role, she is vice president of technology and research partnerships and operations. She reports to Microsoft's chief technology officer and leads a team that manages some of the company's technology partners. relationships, including collaboration with OpenAI.
According to people familiar with the matter, she has begun attending OpenAI board meetings to discuss some personal matters. OpenAI and Microsoft declined to comment.
OpenAI's board of directors removed Altman as CEO in November, and a few days later, after Altman was reinstated, Microsoft President Brad Smith told reporters that changes in OpenAI's corporate governance "give us more confidence." OpenAI agreed to give Microsoft, its largest investor, has a non-voting observer seat, which will increase scrutiny of Microsoft's close relationship with OpenAI.
OpenAI received some criticism for not having female members on its original board, which may have been a factor in the decision to appoint Dee Templeton as a board observer.
However, the cost of Microsoft joining the OpenAI board of directors is that U.S. and British regulators are investigating Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI and whether they may violate antitrust laws.
Other board members
OpenAI's current board members are former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor (who also serves as board chairman), former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo
Altman previously said a new board would be selected "fairly soon." He did not specify how many people would eventually become part of the group but said there would be a "significant increase" from current numbers.
According to the latest news from TheInformation, the OpenAI board of directors is considering new board candidates, but Altman is not among them.
The two board candidates include former GitHub CEO and startup investor Nat Friedman (pictured below, left) and Scale AI co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang (pictured below, right).
It is unclear who else the OpenAI board has been approached by to join the board of directors. But the talks, which are still in their early stages, suggest the OpenAI board is looking to add representation from companies that work with OpenAI, such as Scale, or with other artificial intelligence startups.
The new board of directors candidates did not consider letting Ultraman join this time, probably more to avoid suspicion. OpenAI's current valuation has reached 100 billion US dollars, and Ultraman only needs to be a steady CEO and ensure that at this stage, Just commercialize OpenAI.
And in a year or two, I believe it will be a matter of time before Altman returns to the board of directors.
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