The business claims that it has never implemented this clause and that it is updating the leave documentation.
It has been revealed that OpenAI had employees who were leaving the firm choose between maintaining their vested ownership and having the ability to speak out against the corporation. According to Vox, which viewed the document in question, employees could “lose all vested equity they earned during their time at the company, which is likely worth millions of dollars” if they did not sign a nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreement. This was made possible by a provision that was included in the off-boarding papers. The Chief Executive Officer of OpenAI, Sam Altman, issued a tweet on Saturday evening confirming the existence of such a provision. However, he stated that “we have never clawed back anyone’s vested equity, nor will we do that if people do not sign a separation agreement (or don’t agree to a non-disparagement agreement).”
This was corroborated by a spokesman for OpenAI in a statement that was provided to Vox. Altman also stated that the company “was already in the process of fixing the standard exit paperwork over the past month or so.” Nevertheless, as Vox points out in its investigation, at least one former employee of OpenAI has publicly discussed the fact that they chose not to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) when they left their position. In a recent post that he made on an online forum, Daniel Kokotajlo stated that the decision that was made resulted in the loss of equity that most likely amounted to “at least 85 percent of my family’s net worth.”
in regards to recent stuff about how openai handles equity:
— Sam Altman (@sama) May 18, 2024
we have never clawed back anyone's vested equity, nor will we do that if people do not sign a separation agreement (or don't agree to a non-disparagement agreement). vested equity is vested equity, full stop.
there was…
Altman’s response included an apology from the CEO, who stated that he was “embarrassed” after learning about the provision, which he claimed he had been ignorant of in the past. “[T]here was a provision about potential equity cancellation in our previous exit documents; although we never clawed anything back, it should never have been something we had in any documents or communication,” he wrote on X. I am referring to the fact that we never clawed anything back. “I am responsible for this, and it is one of the few times that I have ever been truly embarrassed while running open-air; I was unaware that this was taking place, and I ought to have understood it better.” Altman went on to state, “[I]f any former employee who signed one of those old agreements is worried about it, they can contact me and we’ll fix that too.” This was in addition to the fact that the corporation is updating the documentation that is required to be completed when leaving the company.
An additional two high-profile resignations from OpenAI have occurred this week, which is the cause of all of this. Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder and Chief Scientist of OpenAI, made the announcement on Wednesday that he was quitting the firm. Shortly after, Jan Leike, who had been a project leader on OpenAI’s disbanded “Superalignment” artificial intelligence safety team, also left the company.