- Emmett Shear is set to become interim CEO of OpenAI, marking the third time in as many days.
- He previously met Sam Altman at the inaugural Y Combinator class in 2005.
- In 2014, Altman presented it at a startup discussion at Stanford University.
Emmett Shear announced at 1 a.m. PT on Monday that he will become interim CEO of OpenAI.
After a dramatic weekend, the Twitch co-founder and former CEO steps into the position once held by Sam Altman, who was fired by OpenAI’s board on Friday before negotiations began to rehire him.
Talks have broken down and Altman will instead move to Microsoft alongside former OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman.
Shear becomes the third person to take the reins at OpenAI in as many days, after previous interim CEO Mira Murati publicly extended her support to Altman amid the chaos.
This isn’t the first time Altman and Shear have crossed paths.
In 2005, the two attended the inaugural classes of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator of which Altman served as president from 2014 to 2019.
In 2014, Altman introduced Shear at a startup lecture at Stanford University.
In a 46-minute YouTube video posted by Y Combinator, Shear gave a lecture on how to conduct user interviews to understand your startup’s customers.
The first 20 seconds show Altman introducing Shear and noting how Amazon has taken over Twitch.
In the video, he said the lecture “should be really useful” and thanked Shear for coming before the class started.
