Inside OpenAI’s weird governance structure

“WHICH WOULD you have more confidence in? Getting your technology from a non-profit, or a for-profit company that is entirely controlled by one human being?” asked Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, at a conference in Paris on November 10th. That was Mr Smith’s way of praising OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, and knocking companies like Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s social-media giant. Events of the past week, which began on November 17th with OpenAI’s board firing its boss, Sam Altman, and ended four days later with his return to the startup he co-founded, have made the non-profit setups look rather less attractive. They have also thrown a spotlight on AI darlings’ unusual governance arrangements.