Today in health. It, what the heck is going on at open AI. What does it mean to you and what can we learn from it? My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator this week health instead of channels and events dedicated to transform healthcare. One connection at a time. We were, thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders.

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I'm going to come over here to our new site. If you haven't checked it out yet this week, health.com/news. And we have a couple of stories on the open AI. Happenings. Should we say that. Happenings. Is that the right word? Hopefully you've heard about this by now. If you haven't. I'm really surprised. But essentially the CEO of open AI, Sam Altman. I was asked to leave by the board and his CTO. Greg Brockman. Also decided to to leave CTO precedent.

I forget. I think he is CTO. But decided to leave as well. And and they were picked up by Microsoft. They were picked up by Microsoft before the weekend was out. So open AI's board announced late Friday that was removing all men and replacing him. On an interim basis with technology chief. Mira Morati. Then late Sunday night open AI said it was bringing on board, former Twitch CEO, Emmett. Emmett shear. To run the artificial intelligence company and just hours after the story. Took another twist with such a Nadella announcing that Altman and Greg Brockman would be absorbed in-house into the Microsoft team. Let's start with. What does this mean for you?

A lot of you have started on this path with open AI, through Microsoft in many cases, in most cases. And I don't think this means much to you at all. And I think you can thank such an, a dollar for that. I think if they had not been picked up by Microsoft. I think we'd be having a different conversation. Today then we would have had, they been floating in the wind or starting a new venture, which was floated out there as well.

They were talking about starting a new venture or maybe doing a chip company that competes. With Nvidia or something to that effect. And then in, in flies, a such in the Dallas says, Hey, we're going to have a new AI team. And we would like the two of you to head that up. And since Microsoft has a 49% owner. Of open AI that ended up itself is worth taking a look at, but what does this mean to you as a health system?

I don't think it means much, to be honest with you. I think what it does display is that there's a difference in opinion. In terms of the direction that open AI is going, remember OpenAI was founded as a company with high ideals. It was founded as a, almost a, an experiment around AI to see what was possible. To explore its boundaries in an ethical almost research oriented way.

And that's what its founding was about. And clearly it has left those roots way long ago. At least. A year and a half ago, it left those roots when it went to a hundred million. That was one thing when it's sold. The 49% ownership to Microsoft that went even further. And then recently with the app store and other things, it has signaled that they are a corporate entity. That they are moving at the PA whatever pace the free market will take them.

That's the pace at which they're moving. Those who are worried about AI and its pace and those kinds of things, and they were looking to open AI to do it in a responsible way while they've drank the Kool-Aid, they're absolutely all in, on making money. In fact, I think this is one of the reasons that the the employees are, threatening to walk out is because there was a. There was a deal in place to essentially get them shares. And make them all multi-millionaires. And And they're upset now, they're going to say they're upset because they lost their fearless leader and that kind of stuff. But he was leading them in a, it absolutely in a capitalist direction. Not a research and science. Kind of direction.

And so the partnership with Microsoft makes a lot of sense. In terms of where they're going. I again, I don't think this means much for us as health systems. I think this. W signals again with them going to Microsoft signals that we will continue to move at breakneck pace on the large language models. If I were a shareholder in OpenAI, I'm not sure what this would mean. I could see open AI getting swallowed up by Microsoft.

That's a potential, but either case you engaged open AI through Microsoft. In a lot of cases or you've, maybe you've had your bets and you've gone in the Google direction. You've gone in the AWS direction. But regardless. Most of us engaged through Microsoft. So it doesn't mean much.

lEt me tell you. What we learned. What I learned from this one is there's a very impressive thing that you see here, and that is the move by Microsoft. All right. So Microsoft is a massive company. Massive company, publicly traded company shareholders, you name it, the whole shooting match, all the things that signal bureaucracy and moving slowly. And such an, a Dala was able to late afternoon, Friday announced. By Sunday night. Or. Definitely before Monday morning, opening bell. He had essentially shored up the market, shored up taken out the risk associated with their 49% ownership of open AI. And if anything, Microsoft receives a bounce as a result of this.

They look really good. They have a protected. Their investment they've protected their clients. And I think for those organizations that are like, Hey, we're a large organization. It's hard to move quickly to make these kinds of decisions. I think we just saw what it looks like for a large institution to act like a startup. And Microsoft ax. More and more like a startup every day with such a Nadella in place.

And it's something I think that we could could emulate. So anyway, I think that is a that's impressive. I think the other thing is when it's important to have visions align. So you had board members who were still. Under the impression that open AI. Was about research and ethical advancement of AI and essentially. It wasn't as much about commerce as it was about moving. The world forward with the support of this technology. And that represented, I don't know, handful of players on the board, enough players on the board to oust Sam Altman.

That was their vision. And as the vision changed and Sam Altman and others were changing that vision. He may not have been communicating that. He was not bringing them along for shore. He wasn't not bringing them along, but he may not have been communicating that that came across as covering things up that came across as not in alignment with the. Original. Objectives of open AI. And as a result created a rift that rift led to his ouster and to their credit. Again, To their credit.

That was a hard move. Right or wrong. That was a hard move. And they felt it was an ethical move and something they had to make. And again, to their credit. Not a lot of board to do that. They'd sit back and let the CEO run all over him. Until what they thought they had signed up for. And no longer looks like that happens all the time in business.

This board. Stood their ground and they're getting kicked in the teeth for it. And I think they knew they would get kicked in the teeth and they thought it was important enough. To to make the move. And so anyway that's one thing that we learned from it. It's important to keep the visions aligned as a CEO communication or CIO or Cisco or whatever role you're in.

It's important to have communication with the leadership team. To keep them in the loop in terms of where you're going. If there is a divergence. In terms of the vision. It's important to communicate that, to allow the people who need to weigh in. In an inclusive kind of way to participate in that. You can't. You can't run away and run and hide. With this stuff.

If you're leading. A department leading a leading an organization. It is important to have that front and center to have those conversations above board. It's important to note that when we read these stories about CISOs, who are essentially facing litigation and that kind of stuff. 99.9% of the time.

It's they covered something up. They decided not to be forthright. They decided to hold the information. To themselves and the same, thing's true of any leadership position when you try to through hold things back. That's when things go south. So I think that's another thing to learn from this.

I'm trying to think if there's anything else to to pull out of this. I don't know. It's going to be it. This is going to be an interesting space to watch. I think this does, it creates enough uncertainty that people may want to hedge their bets. It does create that. Where people are looking at it going, Hey, we were putting an awful lot of eggs in the Microsoft open AI basket. Maybe we should have some eggs and some other baskets.

Now, healthcare is not good at this. We have so many eggs in our EHR basket. We have a lot of eggs in the Microsoft basket. We have Workday basket, we have a lot of eggs in single baskets all over the place. So we're used to doing this. So maybe this isn't a wake-up call of any kind. In regards to this baby, we're just, we're used to it. And we know that you have to go all in with somebody. In order to make the progress you need to make.

And I know. But that's what I'm taking from this for today. This is going to be an evolving story. We'll keep an eye on it. But at the end of the day, does this impact healthcare? I don't think it impacts healthcare all that much. I think it's going to be full steam ahead on large language models there.

Use. In administrative areas in it areas. In revenue cycle in and eventually in the clinical setting. So I think you're going to see that. Again, full speed ahead. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. All right. That's all for today. Don't forget. Share this podcast with a friend or colleague. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders, short tests, artists parlance, certified health, notable and 📍 service.

Now check them out at this week. health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.