We are back with tech news. This week was probably, if not definitely, the wildest week in tech. So much happened that we will be covering. But before we do, when I say "we," I'm referring to myself and my coworker Steve. Hi, how's it going, Steve? I pay him minimum wage, but he does his job. He gets by, okay. Sorry, I'm so cheesy today. In all seriousness, this week was one of the biggest in tech history. I'm sure you all know, or at least I hope you do, what I'm referring to, which is what happened with OpenAI.
.png)
Aside from that, though, there were some other really big things that happened this past week in tech that we will be covering right now. Oh, and if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button, give this video a like, and alright, now let's get into it. It really supports me, by the way. Like, it helps my channel. It helps me make content for you. I love y'all. Alright, before we get into it, one other thing I wanted to share with you all. If you haven't heard, I am now the founder of my own company, which is just wild to say, and it's all because of you.
I launched recently, actually, under two weeks ago. We launched Takeoff, which is a platform where you can go to level up your career, your knowledge, your learnings, all centered around tech. One of the biggest reasons for me to create Takeoff was I really wanted to hear from real people, real people working within the tech industry who had different stories to share, different experiences to share, who were experts, VPs, CEOs, maybe even junior people, but people who were actually in the tech industry.
I felt everywhere I looked, there were courses and courses on top of courses, but so what? Where are the people? Where are the stories that I can relate to, that you can relate to, to feel motivated and have that network to really build on to your career? Hence, we created Takeoff. Takeoff is a place where you will find classes from speakers that will talk about how to grow and elevate your career, to stand out, how to get that really high-paying salary.
We're also going to be introducing workshops which will cover coding, public speaking, resume building, and so much more. So make sure to go sign up today, and I will see you on Takeoff. Oh, by the way, we have a Slack channel as well, which is private to all Takeoff members, founding members. Let's start with OpenAI, the biggest tech news, of course, and what I thought would be interesting, as I'm sure so many of you are already familiar with a lot of the bits and pieces from the news with OpenAI, is to give you a full timeline, a full breakdown.
Because I don't know about you, but for me, I felt like every day something new was coming up. I kept on hearing different things. So let's take this step by step, starting with November 16th, which was Thursday. It was last Thursday, which feels like forever ago at this point. So last Thursday, according to a post from one of the co-founders, Greg Brockman, G mentioned in his post, which was on Friday, that Thursday night, Sam got a text Thursday evening about a scheduled Friday noon call.
This was a call where the news broke. Fast forward to Friday, right after the meeting, another big news broke, which was Brockman announced that he is going to be quitting OpenAI as well. If they're letting Sam go, he's not staying as well. So now we've lost Sam, Greg Brockman, all to OpenAI in a matter of 24 hours. Now, as a side note, a lot of people are speculating why did Sam get let go in the first place? This was the board's decision, and I don't really want to share one speculation or another because there is no 100% answer at this point, and I don't want to spread false information.
But there are a lot of skeptics saying it was because of some different practices going on that he was partaking in. Some employees were saying that it was because, I don't know, let's just say it was because of the board for now. I don't want to get into all that. Now, still on Friday, Sam Altman tweeted this: "I love my time at OpenAI. It was transformative for me personally and hopefully the world a little bit. Most of all, I loved working with such talented people."
Okay, so he's announcing it very classy announcement, I must say. Then let's scroll to November 18th, which is the Saturday. So I guess 24 hours since he was let go, he tweeted, "Today was a weird experience in many ways, but one unexpected one is it's kind of been like reading your own eulogy while you're still alive. The outpouring of love is awesome." So at this point, OpenAI employees were furious. Over 500 out of the 700 employees were threatening to quit. And I don't even think it was really threatening. I think it was they are going to quit if Sam didn't come back. It was very, there was so much tension in the air.
And it was around this time, though, that Altman actually agreed to go on to, oh, Sunday night. Altman agreed to go work for Microsoft. Now, with him going to work for Microsoft, Greg, as well, said he would join Microsoft too. So Microsoft, at this point, is thinking this is amazing, this is great. They're loving it. Now, I remember waking up Tuesday morning and looking at the news and thinking, this can't be right. This is old news. Sam Altman returned as CEO to OpenAI, something I thought would happen. I mean, we've seen this with so many incredible tech founders of companies from Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, the list goes on.
But I thought it would take a few years. I didn't think he would return this quickly. But this really shows the power of community, employees really routing or rooting for you and coming together. If it wasn't for OpenAI employees threatening to quit at such a mass scale, I don't think he would have been back this quickly. He tweeted, or OpenAI tweeted, they've reached an agreement in principle with Sam Altman to return as CEO for OpenAI.
And also too, I'm sure Sam had so much leverage in that meeting. The board did a 180 as well for a lot of their members. So new board members include Brett Taylor as chair, Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo. What a wild under a full week for OpenAI. And I think it's just going to get wild, to be honest. I think this is the beginning. Imagine Sam in that room, the negotiating power he had to get back with OpenAI. At this point, they knew they needed him back. Everyone was threatening to quit. He has a lot of power in his hands right now.
Most importantly, though, I think this is going to make for an excellent movie one day. All right, next up, another big thing that happened in tech this past week, which kind of
