From November 17 to 21, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, was in turmoil because of the departure of its CEO, Sam Altman. The story had an impact on the WLD token of Worldcoin, a project co-founded by Altman. It dumped at first, but then started to rise. Other tokens from the artificial intelligence segment also showed growth.
Update. On November 22, OpenAI agreed to welcome back Sam Altman as its CEO with a new board. The co-founder Greg Brockman also returned to the company. Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, supported these decisions. He stated that he is looking forward to the partnership between the companies.
Why the OpenAI board fired Sam Altman
On November 17, OpenAI’s board of directors removed Sam Altman as CEO, and announced that his place will be temporarily taken by the company's CTO, Mira Murati.
According to a press release, the company noted that Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering his ability to exercise his responsibilities". However, reports from Bloomberg suggest that this case is about the conflict between Altman and the board over the commercialization of the company's products, reducing their potential impact on humanity, and the broader development of artificial intelligence.
Later that day, following Altman’s departure, Greg Brockman, OpenAI co-founder and chairman, announced his resignation from the company. Moreover, several employees stood in solidarity with the ex-CEO and chose to leave OpenAI as well.
How Open AI had three CEOs in three days
As reported by The Verge, a rift has emerged on the OpenAI board of directors since November 18, with discussions underway to bring Altman and Brockman back. According to Bloomberg, such a change in the board of directors occurred under investor pressure, including Microsoft, which had invested over $10 billion. Subsequently, reports indicated that the board generally agreed for Altman's return.
However, on the evening of November 19th, The Information reported a reversal by the board, opting to appoint a new interim CEO, citing Mira Muratti's loyalty to Altman and Brockman, whom she planned to reinstate. This time, Emmett Shear, the co-founder of streaming platform Twitch, was selected.
On November 20, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, decided to hire Sam Altman and Greg Brockman to lead a new AI research team within the company.
More than 700 of OpenAI's 770 employees have signed a letter demanding Altman’s reinstatement and the board resignation, or they threatened to follow him at Microsoft.
To summarise, OpenAI changed its CEO twice in a few days, lost its two main faces, and had Microsoft poach them. Now, let’s figure out what crypto has to do with this story.
WLD rollercoaster ride after Altman’s departure
In July, Worldcoin launched its WLD token, a digital identity protocol that collects users' iris and consists of a World ID, a World App, and a Worldcoin Token.
Read a detailed breakdown of the project in our article "What's the fuss about Worldcoin?"
Sam Altman is one of the founders of Worldcoin, who has been playing an important role in the project’s development. The events that took place over these last days directly impacted on the WLD exchange rate. Consider the hourly chart below.
Before the news broke on November 16, WLD plummeted from $2.3 to $2.02. After Altman's dismissal became known on November 17, the token dipped another 7.5% to $1.87 and hit a low of $1.82, marking a 10% drop.
However, as clarity emerged, the price began an upward trend. Notably, the value surged with Satya Nadella's tweet about the hiring of Altman and Brockman but corrected sharply afterward. WLD is now trading at $2.4.
The buzz around OpenAI pumped up AI-related tokens
The buzz surrounding OpenAI fueled interest in AI-related tokens. A similar thing occurred earlier this year when tokens within this market segment rose alongside the ChatGPT hype. In many ways, the significant percentage increase can be attributed, in part, to the small capitalisation of these tokens.
Here is a list from CoinMarketCap showcasing the largest AI and big data-related tokens. AKT (Akash Network, +72%), RNDR (Render, +56%), and FET (Fetch.ai, +32%) have shown the biggest growth over the last 7 days.
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