Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI clarified on Sunday that the company has never clawed back any employee's vested equity and will never do such a thing in the future.
Altman made this statement, in response to a media report that claimed that the ChatGPT maker revoked employees' vested equity (or stock option) in the company, following two high-profile departures.
Altman said that they (OpenAI and the companies under the umbrella) never do this "if people do not sign a separation agreement (or don't agree to a non-disparagement agreement)".
On his official X (formerly known as Twitter) page, Altman wrote, "Vested equity is vested equity, full stop."
According to the CEO, there was a provision about potential equity cancellation in the company’s previous exit documents.
He further expained, "Although we never clawed anything back, it should never have been something we had in any documents or communication. This is on me and one of the few times I've been genuinely embarrassed running OpenAI. I did not know this was happening and I should have."
Altman also added that the team was already in the process of fixing the standard exit paperwork over the past month or so.
"If any former employee who signed one of those old agreements is worried about it, they can contact me and we'll fix that too. Very sorry about this," he posted.
Also, Sam Altman further announced last week that their Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever has decided to move out of the organisation, leaving the AI company. Sutskever was part of the organisation and the founding team, played a key role in the dramatic ouster of the CEO in November 2023. Soon after, he further stated that he regretted the move.
Sutskever has been replaced by Research Director Jakub Pachocki at the company behind ChatGPT AI chatbot.
Also, in April end this year, ChatGPT has added another advanced feature, marking the development in the artificial intelligence segment. It is worth noting that the company has expanded its chatbot’s capabilities by introducing a new Memory feature, which will help in retaining instructions across all conversations.
Initially, it was rolled out to the limited testers in February 2024 and now it has been made available for all the ChatGPT Plus subscribers, besides Europe and Korea.
Inputs from IANS
