VIDEO: 5 Technology Bosses Who Have Been Fired From Their Own Company, Steve Jobs Is On The List

JAKARTA - Founders and leaders of technology companies should be the most powerful people for their business operations. However, a number of names are known to have been forced to leave the company they founded. Who are the bosses?

In the first order there is Steve Jobs who became a prominent and key figure behind the success of Apple Inc. company. After nine years, he could not secure his position from the Apple company he founded since 1985. The dismissal occurred due to a dispute with the then CEO of Apple, John Sculley, regarding a computer that was considered an expensive product in the 1980s.

Steve was then fired from the managerial role. But Apple had difficulties without his leadership. Then in 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple via Apple's acquired Next. Next is the computer company Steve founded during his dismissal from Apple.

Second, there was Jack Ma who earlier this year was fired from Ant Group, a company he made himself engaged in financial technology. Ant Group developed Alipay, a digital wallet platform that is very popular in China. The Alibaba founder was fired from Ant Group for criticizing the Chinese government about the financial system. The criticism was delivered in 2020, but the impact is still felt today.

In number three is Sandy Lerner, co-founder of Cisco System, a global telecommunications company that was founded in 1984. Six years later, Lerner was kicked out of Cisco due to a conflict between himself and the board of directors over the company's future direction. Lerner's dismissal was also allegedly due to tensions over the company's management and culture style.

In number four there are Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the founder of a mobile phone company that boomed in 2009, yap BlackBerry. Both were fired when BlackBerry phones had difficulty competing with Android and iPhone devices.

The dominance of these two smartphones makes BlackBerry contract quite deeply. Mike and Jim are considered slow in responding to market trends and fail to innovate and adapt. In 2011, amid a decline in sales, the two were forced to resign as Co-CEOs and give control of the company to Thorsten Heins.

Finally, there is Sam Altman, the figure behind OpenAI's success, which is a company that develops artificial intelligence-based chatbots, yap ChatGpt. This story was quite shocking last year. On November 17, 2023, Altman was kicked by the board of directors because he was considered not open in communication. The board of directors assessed that Altman was hampering their ability to see their performance and responsibility in leading the company.

This decision received protests from many parties, ranging from investors to OpenAI employees. However, Altman's position has been filled by the former Twitch CEO,ular Shear. Microsoft then took advantage of this drama, by recruiting Altman to become the leader of the AI research division on November 20, 2023. Shortly after, on November 29, OpenAI again withdrew Altman as CEO, accompanied by a reshuffle of the board of directors according to his request. Watch the video below.