Why did Ilya Sutskever leave OpenAI, according to Karen Hao?

Karen Hao told Steven Bartlett that Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder, helped try to get Sam Altman fired because he felt Altman was undermining the two things he cared about most: reaching AGI and reaching it safely. Based on her interviews, Hao says Sutskever came to feel he was being manipulated into building something he did not believe in.

Hao says Sutskever described Altman as pitting teams against each other and telling different people different things.
Hao interviewed Sutskever in 2019 for her MIT Technology Review profile of OpenAI.

▸In their words

“He felt that Altman was creating a very chaotic environment within the company” Karen Hao · at 2:32 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett (2026-10-23). Read the whole episode summary →

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