Sam Altman is ‘embarrassed’ that OpenAI threatened to revoke fairness if exiting workers wouldn’t signal an NDA

OpenAI reportedly made exiting workers select between maintaining their vested fairness and having the ability to communicate out in opposition to the corporate. Based on , which seen the doc in query, workers may “lose all vested fairness they earned throughout their time on the firm, which is probably going price thousands and thousands of {dollars}” in the event that they didn’t signal a nondisclosure and non-disparagement settlement, because of a provision within the off-boarding papers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed in a on Saturday night that such a provision did exist, however mentioned “we now have by no means clawed again anybody’s vested fairness, nor will we try this if individuals don’t signal a separation settlement (or do not comply with a non-disparagement settlement).”

An OpenAI spokesperson echoed this in an announcement to Vox, and Altman mentioned the corporate “was already within the technique of fixing the usual exit paperwork over the previous month or so.” However as Vox notes in its report, at the least one former OpenAI worker has spoken publicly about sacrificing fairness by declining to signal an NDA upon leaving. Daniel Kokotajlo not too long ago on a web-based discussion board that this choice led to the lack of fairness seemingly amounting to “about 85 % of my household’s web price at the least.”

In Altman’s response, the CEO apologized and mentioned he was “embarrassed” after discovering out concerning the provision, which he claims he was beforehand unaware of. “[T]right here was a provision about potential fairness cancellation in our earlier exit docs; though we by no means clawed something again, it ought to by no means have been one thing we had in any paperwork or communication,” he wrote on X. “that is on me and one of many few instances i have been genuinely embarrassed operating openai; i didn’t know this was occurring and that i ought to have [sic].” Along with acknowledging that the corporate is altering the exit paperwork, Altman went on to say, “[I]f any former worker who signed a kind of outdated agreements is frightened about it, they’ll contact me and we’ll repair that too.”

All of this comes after two extra high-profile resignations from OpenAI this week. OpenAI co-founder and Chief Scientist that he was leaving the corporate, and was adopted quickly after by Jan Leike, who was a group chief on OpenAI’s .