Sergey Diakov
● According to a recent report by Chubby, Ilya Sutskever's deposition has revealed surprising details about OpenAI's 2023 leadership crisis. During the chaos following Sam Altman's brief removal, Anthropic—a competing AI safety company—actually considered merging with OpenAI, which would have put Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei at the helm.
● The merger idea came up right after Altman was fired, when OpenAI's governance was being questioned. It would have united two of the world's leading AI companies. But Sutskever shut it down, citing major "practical and governance obstacles." He pointed out that OpenAI's profit-focused structure clashed fundamentally with Anthropic's safety-first approach, making the merger practically impossible from legal, organizational, and philosophical standpoints.
● Had it happened, an OpenAI-Anthropic merger would have completely changed the AI landscape, bringing together elite researchers, massive computing resources, and funding into one entity potentially valued over $150 billion. Instead, both companies went their separate ways. OpenAI strengthened its Microsoft partnership, while Anthropic secured backing from Amazon and Google to continue building its Claude AI models. Rather than consolidating power, the AI industry remained competitive.
● The deposition also exposed serious internal problems at OpenAI. Sutskever's memos accused Altman of "a consistent pattern of lying" and manipulation, which led to board-level distrust and his temporary removal. The whole situation highlighted the ongoing governance struggles in AI, where rapid innovation often collides with ethical oversight.
Sergey Diakov
