🌋 Mira Murati Leaves OpenAI

posted  26 Sept 2024
Mira Murati, the Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, has made the decision to depart from the company. Her exit marks the latest in a wave of high-profile departures from the top management of the world’s leading AI company.

Previously, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever also left OpenAI. Afterward, co-founder Greg Brockman took an extended leave, which will last through the end of 2024. Meanwhile, John Schulman joined the AI startup Anthropic. Now, of the original OpenAI founding team, only Sam Altman and Polish computer scientist Wojciech Zaremba remain.
Left to right: Mira Murati, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever Source: nytimes.com

Left to right: Mira Murati, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever Source: nytimes.com

Mira Murati spent over six years at OpenAI. She was also appointed as acting CEO when Sam Altman was temporarily ousted from his chair in the fall of 2023.

In a letter to employees, which was later posted on the social platform X, Mira thanked both Sam and Greg and praised the team for reaching impressive levels of innovation.
Our recent releases of speech-to-speech and OpenAl o1 mark the beginning of a new era in interaction and intelligence - achievements made possible by your ingenuity and craftsmanship. We didn't merely build smarter models, we fundamentally changed how Al systems learn and reason through complex problems,
Murati stated.
She also mentioned her desire “to create the time and space to do my own exploration”.

In a reply on X, Sam Altman thanked his colleague for her contributions to the company.
I feel tremendous gratitude towards her for what she has helped us build and accomplish, but I most of all feel personal gratitude towards her for the support and love during all the hard times. I am excited for what she’ll do next,
Sam Altman expressed.
Following the announcement of these leadership changes, Reuters, referencing sources within OpenAI, reported that the company is considering transitioning to a for-profit model, moving away from its current nonprofit structure. Bloomberg added that in this case, Sam Altman could secure a 7% stake in this scenario.

It’s worth noting that Elon Musk, one of the original founders of OpenAI, previously stated that the company was envisioned as the antithesis of Google—a commercial organization with closed-source code. The original model Elon had in mind focused on avoiding the pursuit of profit and working for the greater good of humanity.