Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, is one of several employees leaving the company, triggering a leadership shakeup at the artificial intelligence startup as it considers changing its corporate structure.
In a message shared with employees on Wednesday, Murati said: “After much reflection, I have made the difficult decision to leave Open AI.” Bob McGrew, director of research, and Barret Zoph, vice president of research, also said Wednesday they were leaving the company.
It is the latest blow to the Microsoft-backed system. artificial intelligence The startup, which has seen several high-profile exits this year including those of founders John Schulman and Ilya Sutskever, has joined rival Anthropic, while Sutskever has launched his own company aimed at creating “safe” AI models.
Only two of The 11 founders of OpenAI remain, after Greg Brockman announced in August that he would take a leave of absence until the end of the year.
MuratThe 35-year-old has led the company’s efforts to develop ChatGPT as a standalone product, building on technical advances made with GPT, the large language model that underpins it. He also oversaw the releases and improvements of the company’s Dall-E image generator and Codex AI code generator. He joined the company in 2018, having previously worked at augmented reality startup Magic Leap and electric carmaker Tesla.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has named a new senior vice president of research, Mark Chen, and a new head of mission alignment, Josh Achiam, promoted from research scientist to ensure “we have all the right pieces (and culture) in place to be in a position to be mission successful.”
“Leadership changes are a natural thing in companies, especially ones that grow so fast and are so demanding,” Altman added. “Obviously, I’m not going to pretend that it’s natural for this to be so abrupt, but we’re not a normal company.”
“Look, Bob and Barret made these decisions independently and amicably, but the timing of Mira’s decision was such that it made sense to do it all at once, so we can work together for a smooth transfer to the next generation of leadership,” he added in a post on X.
Last November, Murati was named interim CEO after OpenAI’s board ousted Altman for what it said was his lack of candor. Murati served in the role for four days until Altman returned, following intense pressure from investors and staff. He was later cleared to rejoin the board following an independent review of his conduct.
Murati’s departure is a reminder of the scars that incident left on the fast-growing San Francisco startup, which was founded as a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that artificial general intelligence — which aims to replicate human intelligence — would benefit all of humanity. In 2019, it changed its structure to include a limited-profit company, allowing it to raise large amounts of capital from companies like Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion.
The maker of ChatGPT is now one of the most valuable companies in Silicon Valley and is raising more than $6 billion at a valuation of $150 billion, several people familiar with the matter said.
At the same time, it is in talks to change its corporate structure to make it more investor-friendly and has launched new products, including new AI models like o1, which it says are capable of reasoning, and additional voice capabilities.
Murati wrote on Wednesday that he was leaving because he wanted to “create the time and space to do my own exploration.” He added that his main goal would be to “ensure a smooth transition.”
“Even though I am no longer in the trenches with you, I will continue to support you all,” he wrote.
In October, a month before last year’s leadership crisis, Sutskever and Murati were two of the senior executives who raised concerns about Altman to the board, three people familiar with the matter said. Their concerns included Altman’s leadership style, which they viewed as undermining and pitting people against each other, one of the people said. Murati and others believed his actions created a toxic environment and contributed to the board’s decision to fire him, and the means by which they did so, they added.
But a day after Altman was fired, Sutskever and Murati were negotiating Altman’s return, and both stayed on at OpenAI after he was reinstated as CEO. As the startup tried to recover from the instability, a rift developed around the company’s commercialization and pressure to develop products that could be monetized, current and former employees said.
“Overall, the company has become a more normal tech company over time, more product- and success-oriented, and less altruistic,” said one former employee.
“The principal investigators remain loyal to Sam personally and are there because they want to build [artificial general intelligence]Not because they want to make money.”
In March, Murati said it was “disheartening to witness the former board’s efforts to scapegoat me with anonymous, misleading claims in a last-ditch effort to save face in the media,” and told staff she had a “strong and productive relationship” with Altman and was “not shy” in her comments toward him.
Murati and Sutskever declined to comment. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Additional information from George Hammond