Microsoft's 'de-OpenAI' triggers a high-level reshuffle: Bing CEO was squeezed out by DeepMind Lianchuang! Nadella meets with Stable Diffusion boss

Major changes in Microsoft’s top management.

Everything was triggered by Nadella’s appointment of a new AI director.

No, last weekDeepMind Lianchuang Suleiman just became the CEO of Microsoft’s new AI department——

This week, The person in charge of Bing was suddenly announced: he has resigned.

This executive has worked at Microsoft for more than 11 years.

Now his whereabouts are unknown. Whether he is leaving his old club completely or transferring internally is unknown.

The reshuffle of Microsoft’s top management begins here.

DeepMind Lianchuang was airborne, and the person in charge of Bing was resigned

Last week, Suleiman, the founder of DeepMind Lianchuang and Inflection AI( Suleyman)Airborne to Microsoft:

Sit directly as the CEO of the new department"Microsoft AI", and carry Copilot, Bing alone and Edge, the three main consumer-oriented AI product research and development.

This is Microsoft’s biggest recent architectural adjustment in this generative wave.

Suleiman dropped out of Oxford University and founded DeepMind in 2010 with two friends (Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg) , and later in 2014 Acquired by Google in year.

In 2019, Suleiman completely quit DeepMind and began working with Jeff Dean on Google AI-related work.

In 2022, he left Google to found a new company, Inflection AI, which is currently valued at US$4 billion.

This time, after being hired by Microsoft, in addition to serving as the executive vice president and CEO of an important new department, he also joined the senior leadership team and reported directly to CEO Nadella.

Mikhail Parakhin, the original head of Bing and head of Microsoft's advertising business, turned to Suleiman to report.

Therefore, thousands of employees under Parakhin also became Suleiman’s team.

Then, everyone saw what happened:

In about a week, Parakhin decided to step down.

The official statement is "looking for a new position." It is unknown whether it is an internal transfer or a departure from Microsoft, but according to opinion analysis, the latter is very likely.

In addition to Bing and advertising businesses, Parakhin is also responsible for Microsoft's Windows software business.

Now, this part is attributed to the original head of the Surface department - equivalent to Microsoft Windows and Surface, which were originally responsible for two different executives, are now under one person.

Bloomberg reported that this departmental change shows that Nadella has lost patience with the Bing team.

Because Microsoft invested a lot of money in transforming the Bing search engine, but it basically had no impact on the competitive landscape with Google.

Microsoft’s de-OpenAI

All these reshuffles and changes at Microsoft’s top management must start with “de-OpenAI”.

First of all, although cooperation with OpenAI has made Microsoft "like a fish in water", the "coup" caused by Altman's removal from the board of directors in November last year made Microsoft's board of directors begin to worry. :

OpenAI is not stable.

As a result, the board of directors suggested that Nadella should diversify the company’s AI investments, that is, not just hang on the tree of OpenAI.

Secondly, within Microsoft, employees are concerned that "the company has been reduced to an IT department of OpenAI" ” complaints also intensified. In everyone’s opinion, the company cares too much about its cooperation with OpenAI and spends too many resources on this “one person”.

One of the Cloud AI teams said that they used to be an innovation engine for Microsoft, but now they are purely maintaining OpenAI services.

Azure AI-related departments also began to focus on Azure OpenAI, which directly triggered the resignation of some senior executives.

Finally, plus the response to regulation

(The United States, the European Union and other organizations have begun monopoly investigations on the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI)

, and the current challenge to Google Progress in search status is very slow, and Microsoft has to take new actions. So ever:

(1) Establish a new AI department - Microsoft AI, which is responsible for the development of all AI products for C-end consumers, including the current three main players, Copilot, Bing and Edge.

(2) Introduce experienced DeepMind Lian Suleiman as the general manager.

also brought a large number of people from his new company Inflection AI.

Among them is Inflection AI co-founder Karén Simonyan, who will serve as another important position in Microsoft AI: chief scientist.

(ps. Inflection AI is also one of the many competing products of OpenAI, and Microsoft has also invested in it before)

This action also marks Microsoft's "departure" OpenAI” is officially launched.

(Of course, what Microsoft ultimately pursues is to achieve a balance in its relationship with OpenAI.)

One More Thing

Nadella He is so anxious.

Just last night, Stable Diffusion boss Emad, who just announced his resignation, posted a video link photo with himself.

Some netizens joked after reading it:

Whoever the AI ​​founder is, the first thing he has to face when he is fired by the board of directors is this face.

#The implication is that now, Nadella can meet everyone worth digging.

Ahem. Fortunately, Emad is just scaring everyone, he should not join Microsoft so soon. (Manual dog head)

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