What the OpenAI Saga Reveals About Double Standards for Diverse Founders

Nicol Turner Lee is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. She has created a new AI Equity Lab at Brookings to interrogate civil and human rights compliance within emerging models. She is also a Public Voices Fellow which is funded by the MacArthur Foundation.   OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies before a Senate subcommittee on May 16, 2023. The firing and subsequent reinstatement of Sam Altman as OpenAI’s leader turned out to be not so bad for the organization, or for him. Altman returned as CEO, with a new Board. Despite his very public firing, Altman also secured the ongoing trust of OpenAI’s largest investor, Microsoft, which just joined the Board as a non-voting member. While much of the commentary on the drama at OpenAI has focused on tensions in its governance structure, few have acknowledged that OpenAI’s more-than-generous funding by venture capitalists (VCs) likely buffered the consequences for Altman and his team and made it possible for him to emerge unscathed in the end. The situation reveals the double standards in VC funding that exist for diverse tech founders, especially people of color and women, who face scrutiny at all stages of capital development and would not have survived a public termination. Reading between the lines, the OpenAI saga substantiates the ongoing claims that VCs still maintain steady confidence in founders that represent the status quo, who are usually white and male, and are slow to fund and perhaps save…What the OpenAI Saga Reveals About Double Standards for Diverse Founders