OpenAI has undergone some adjustments recently. Former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is currently the company’s acting CEO. Prior to him, Mira Murati held the position, but Sam Altman, the company’s co-founder and CEO, left.
Emmett Shear said on November 20, 2023, that he had accepted the company’s invitation to serve as interim CEO. It was surprising to learn that he and Sam Altman were Yale University classmates.
American tech magnate Emmett Shear was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1983. Now that he is leading OpenAI, people are interested in learning about his background, family, money, and life.
Who is Emmett Shear?
Board members at OpenAI replaced outgoing CEO Sam Altman with Emmett Shear (born in 1983) on November 19, 2023, after Altman was fired for cause.
Since its inception as the live video network Justin.tv, Shear has previously served as CEO of Twitch. His tenure there will officially end in March 2023. Shear was a partner at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, on a part-time basis.
In Seattle, Washington, where Emmett Shear grew up, he attended the Evergreen School for Gifted Children. There, he met his eventual co-founder Justin Kan at age 8, and the two were linked by their accelerated math studies and playing Magic: The Gathering.
In 2005, Shear joined Kan and future co-founder Michael Siebel at Yale University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science.
Where did Emmett Shear Come From?
The Yale grad, now 40, first gained notoriety in the startup world in 2005, when he helped launch Kiko, a business working on a user-friendly online calendar.
Despite having backing from Y Combinator, Kiko failed to make an impact. But it was at Y Combinator where Shear met the future CEO of OpenAI; Altman was in his class. Eventually, Shear and his Kiko co-founder, Justin Kan, went through the training once more with the intention of creating a business that would continuously broadcast Justin’s life.
The catalyst, Justin.tv, would later morph into Amazon-acquired streaming platform Twitch.tv in 2014. (The Post is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and The Post’s interim CEO, Patty Stonesifer, is a board member at Amazon.)
Before announcing his resignation as CEO of Twitch in March, Shear stated he was leaving to be “fully there” for his newborn kid.
Where Does Emmett Shear Go From Here?
It can’t be easy to step into such a major role, but Shear seems to be focusing on the right things thus far. In his X job announcement, he detailed his first month’s priorities: He has promised to look into “the entire process” that led OpenAI to this point, to improve communication with the company’s partners and employees, and to reassemble the company’s management and leadership teams “in light of recent departures.”
“I trust Emmett to execute this plan,” wrote Y Combinator managing director Michael Seibel on X in response to Shear’s announcement. “He is one of the smartest and most thoughtful people I’ve encountered in my entire career in tech.”
I trust Emmett to execute this plan. He is one of the smartest and most thoughtful people I’ve encountered in my entire career in tech. https://t.co/6l24LabyEA
— Michael Seibel (@mwseibel) November 20, 2023
However, it’s uncertain precisely how much of a corporation there will be left for Shear to run.
According to OpenAI researcher Lilian Weng, at least 700 of OpenAI’s 770 employees have signed a petition criticizing the business’s board for replacing Murati as temporary CEO and working “against the interests of the company.” According to reports in The Post published on Monday morning, that figure has continued to rise.
They threatened to “resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary” if Altman and former OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman were not appointed as “independent directors” to the board.
Vinod Khosla, a notable venture financier, demanded Shear’s departure on X on Monday. Before “he becomes the only employee of @OpenAI,” Khosla added, “Time for @eshear to resign.” When reached for comment, Khosla did not immediately answer.
The public statements made by Shear could potentially be problematic. His stance on AI’s potential threat to humanity has been deemed alarmist by several researchers in the field. Shear predicted that AI would one day surpass human intelligence in a June podcast discussion with Logan Bartlett. In the same month, he expressed his preference for X for a Nazi world government to replace AI.
Shear has often used his X account to speak on sensitive matters. He addressed young women’s purported dreams of nonconsensual sex in a tweet back in August. Shear posted a screenshot from a study from the 1970s about the similarities between men’s and women’s sexual desires.
“But between 40-60% of women seem to have rape/non-consent fantasies. Why would you assume it’s not a genuine sex fantasy for these girls?” Shear tweeted in response to the original post.
Hmm. Maybe. But between 40-60% of women seem to have rape/non-consent fantasies. Why would you assume it’s not genuine sex fantasy for these girls? Or did I misunderstand and you agree it’s genuine fantasy, you’re just talking about the source of the fantasy? pic.twitter.com/gq0uN9hI9j
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) August 15, 2023
Take a look at given links to kniw more about Emmett Shear Net Worth and his wife:
- Emmett Shear Net Worth: Twitch Co Founder Incredible Wealth iscovered!
- Who is Emmett Shear Wife? Meet The Woman Behind the Twitch Empire!
Emmett Shear Net Worth
Emmett Shear started his career in 2005 when he took classes with Y Combinator with his friend Justin Kan. They made a calendar app and sold it on eBay for $250,000 after Google Calendar was launched.
In 2006, Emmett, Justin, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt created Justin.tv, a popular live video platform. It did really well, and in 2011, it changed its name to Twitch.
Then, in 2014, Amazon purchased Twitch. In March 2023, Shear decided to step down as Twitch’s CEO to spend more time with his family and new baby. Currently, he is serving as the interim CEO of OpenAI and is expected to have a net worth of $500 million in 2023.
