No signs of trouble emerged during Sam Altman's final days as OpenAI CEO.

• After Sam Altman's removal from his position as leader of OpenAI on Friday, he continued to actively promote the company and the industry.
• On Thursday, the APEC summit in San Francisco saw the attendance of Altman.
• On Thursday night, a board member asked Greg Brockman, who was both OpenAI's president and board chair, if Altman could speak the following day.

The sudden removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI on Friday stunned the tech industry. As the CEO of the most popular startup globally and the public face of generative AI following ChatGPT's popularity, Altman's departure has left many in Silicon Valley in shock.

There were hints of technological difficulties at OpenAI, but no evidence of conflict in the boardroom or executive suite. Altman continued to promote the benefits of advanced AI while also cautioning about its risks and pushing for regulation.

Reports emerged that OpenAI was in discussions with investors to sell employee shares at a $86 billion valuation, despite a dramatic correction in tech valuations over the past 18 months following a decade-long bull market fueled by cheap money and FOMO.

In a time of difficulty, OpenAI was the industry's favorite and received billions of dollars in investments. The company was ranked as the top disruptor in CNBC's Disruptor 50 list, published in May. Before the list was released, Altman told CNBC that he believed they were in the midst of a new technological wave, which he considered to be the biggest in a while.

The departure of Altman from OpenAI was difficult to comprehend, prompting some in the tech community to draw parallels with the dismissal of Steve Jobs in 1985. In a statement on its website, OpenAI announced that the board no longer had confidence in Altman's ability to continue leading the company. As a result, Mira Murati, who had previously served as the chief technology officer, was appointed as the interim CEO.

If you followed Altman for the past two weeks, you would have witnessed an industry leader in action. Here's a brief summary of the days leading up to Altman's departure:

Nov. 6:

At OpenAI's DevDay event in San Francisco, Altman unveiled GPT-4 Turbo, the company's most advanced AI model. Additionally, users were granted access to all of OpenAI's tools, including DALL-E and PDF upload, through ChatGPT.

Altman announced at the event that OpenAI would reduce prices for its software and allow individual users to customize ChatGPT. Additionally, he unveiled an OpenAI app store to monetize the company's products.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a surprise appearance on stage with Altman to discuss the future of OpenAI and their partnership. Earlier this year, Microsoft made the largest AI investment of 2023, committing an additional $10 billion.

"I believe we have the top partnership in technology," Altman stated to Nadella during the presentation. "I am thrilled about our collaboration in developing AGI," he added, using the acronym for artificial general intelligence.

Nov. 8:

In the morning, ChatGPT experienced a temporary crash and informed users that it was at capacity. The update page labeled it a significant outage. After an hour, the issue was resolved, but difficulties arose again later in the day.

In the evening, OpenAI stated that its problems were due to a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

The company stated that the periodic outages were caused by an unusual traffic pattern resulting from a DDoS attack.

Issues persisted into the next day before being fixed.

Nov. 14:

Altman announced on X, previously Twitter, that there would be a temporary halt in signing up for ChatGPT Plus. He stated that there had been an increase in demand following the DevDay announcements, and that usage had surpassed their capacity. To ensure a positive experience for all users, they wanted to take a break from new sign-ups.

Nov. 16:

At the APEC summit in San Francisco, AI was the topic of discussion and Altman was among the speakers.

On Friday at 3:28 p.m. ET, OpenAI published a blog post about the dismissal of Sam Altman and the removal of Greg Brockman's role as chairman of the board, but his retention as an executive.

Here’s what happened next:

4:46 p.m. ET:

Altman announced his departure from the company, stating on X that his time there was "transformative for me personally and the world a little bit."

7:09 p.m. ET:

Brockman declared on X that he would leave the company due to recent developments, and expressed his pride in the accomplishments achieved together since the company's inception in his apartment 8 years ago.

11:42 p.m. ET:

In a post on X, Brockman gave a comprehensive description of Altman's removal.

On Thursday night, Altman received a text from OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever asking if they could talk the next day at noon. On Friday afternoon, Altman joined a Google Meet with OpenAI board members Sutskever, Tasha McCauley, Adam D’Angelo, and Helen Toner. Brockman, who was chairman of the board at this time, wasn't there.

Sutskever informed Altman that he was no longer CEO of OpenAI, and later informed Brockman that he was being removed as chairman but could remain president. This was announced in a blog post released around the same time.

Murati learned about the move the night before, according to what he said. Altman shared Brockman's account of the events.

Nov. 18:

A memo was sent by Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap to OpenAI employees regarding the firing. Lightcap stated that the board's decision caught everyone off guard and expressed that Murati has the full support of the company as CEO.

Lightcap wrote that the board's decision was not made due to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices.

— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report

WATCH: OpenAI says Sam Altman exiting as CEO