Sam Altman risks spreading himself too thin at OpenAI

• Sam Altman has taken on a more prominent role at OpenAI as several top leaders have left the company.

• Altman risks spreading itself too thin, three management experts told BI.

• OpenAI is reportedly not hiring a replacement CTO for the time being after the former CTO stepped down.

Eleven months after Sam Altman’s chaotic ouster, OpenAI’s CEO is taking on an even more prominent role at the company he co-founded nearly a decade ago.

As Altman steers OpenAI toward a possible for-profit future, some business management experts warn that the CEO could stretch himself too thin and take on too many roles.

Altman and a spokesperson for OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Altman takes the wheel

Altman had already been the public face of the company, speaking on panels and participating in high-profile interviews. He recently guided OpenAI through a monumental funding round, securing a $157 billion valuation for his startup.

As the company has grown, OpenAI has also lost some of its original founders, top talent, and high-level employees. The latest high-profile departure was Mira Murati, who had been Chief Technology Officer and former interim CEO of OpenAI.

In a company memo shared on X on September 25, Altman wrote that the departure was amicable. He also announced a leadership change that will bring him at least six direct reports.

Altman has not explicitly said he will take on an interim role as CTO; he did say in the memo that he would spend the majority of his time “on the technical and product areas of the business.” An unnamed source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Altman would not seek a replacement CTO for the time being.

Three business management experts told Business Insider that Altman risks stretching himself too thin by acting as CEO and public face of the company while moving forward without a chief technology officer.

“I don’t think that’s a smart move,” Peer Fiss, professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California, told Business Insider. Fiss said that in his MBA classes he often focuses on high-profile corporate governance cases, including OpenAI, Apple and Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase.

The CTO, a role most commonly seen in technology companies, ensures that a company’s technology strategy is aligned with the organization’s goals. Fiss said it would be concerning if Altman continued without CTO because the CEO role is already demanding.

Patricia Lenkov, founder of Agility Executive Search, who said she has helped major financial firms including JPMorgan find a CTO, said Altman should keep the CTO role vacant only on an interim basis.

“In this case, a CEO and the board will often take the opportunity to really think about the new configuration of the company,” Lenkov said. “Now that they’re a $157 billion valuation company, they need different types of people.”

Since its founding in 2015, OpenAI has adopted a hybrid governance structure in which a nonprofit board controls the for-profit arm of the startup. This structure provides some return for investors while ensuring that the company does not stray from its stated mission to benefit all humanity.

Reuters reported in September that the startup wanted to eliminate control of the nonprofit in an effort to attract more investors by turning OpenAI’s core business into a for-profit venture. On October 2, OpenAI announced it had raised $6.6 billion in new funding.

Lenkov said that if Altman chooses to take on more and more roles, the moves could look like a “major power grab,” which could make the search for OpenAI more difficult for C-suites in the future.

“It will be hard to attract the best person because one of the things the best people always ask is, ‘Will I be left alone to do my job or will I just be a ‘yes’ person? ” Lenkov said.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s School of Management and founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, said there is no reason for Altman to “roll up his sleeves and do the work of running the business and building the technology.” Instead, the CEO would benefit from a stable team working with him, Sonnenfeld said.

It’s possible Altman could take on the CTO role on a temporary basis, Sonnenfeld said, “but it’s not likely he can do so in the very long term.”

Read the original article on Business Insider