OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer, Mira Murati, has announced her departure from the Microsoft-backed AI research organization. Along with her, two other top senior executives, Vice President of Research Barret Zoph and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, also shared the news about their exit from the company on X.
The news comes as OpenAI's board is reportedly considering plans to restructure the company to a for-profit business.
Murati is still serving in OpenAI while negotiating her exit from the company. The executive joined OpenAI in 2018 and had also assumed the role of CEO during Altman's brief ousting.
In a heartfelt X post bidding farewell to OpenAI, Murati said her time at the San Francisco-based company was "an extraordinary privilege" and called departing a "challenging step."
"There's never an ideal time to walk away from a place one cherishes, but the moment feels right," Murati said in the post. Her portfolio included being a public face of the ChatGPT maker alongside Sam Altman, as well as leading the presentation of the GPT-4o model launch in May.
"I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration."
I shared the following note with the OpenAI team today. pic.twitter.com/nsZ4khI06P
— Mira Murati (@miramurati) September 25, 2024
I posted this note to OpenAI.
— Barret Zoph (@barret_zoph) September 26, 2024
Hey everybody, I have decided to leave OpenAI.
This was a very difficult decision as I have has such an incredible time at OpenAI. I got to join right before ChatGPT and helped build the post-training team from scratch with John Schulman and…
I just shared this with OpenAI: pic.twitter.com/1gTCbigdsS
— Bob McGrew (@bobmcgrewai) September 26, 2024
Reacting to the news, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed his gratitude to the three top executives for their contributions and called such changes a "natural part of companies."
i just posted this note to openai:
— Sam Altman (@sama) September 26, 2024
Hi All–
Mira has been instrumental to OpenAI’s progress and growth the last 6.5 years; she has been a hugely significant factor in our development from an unknown research lab to an important company.
When Mira informed me this morning that…
The latest resignations come as the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company is in talks to secure $6.5 billion funding, which would boost its valuation to $150 billion. This funding round, led by Thrive Capital, is expected to also draw in investments from tech giants like Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia.
However, the $6.5 billion investment comes with strings attached, as OpenAI's funding providers are demanding a major overhaul of the company's corporate structure. The major restructuring will make the company a for-profit benefit business and give CEO Sam Altman an equity stake, Reuters reported.
OpenAI also faces increasing regulatory scrutiny and copyright infringement lawsuits, including one from the New York Times, amid concerns about data privacy and copyright infringement.
Prior to these latest departures, OpenAI co-founder, scientist Ilya Sutskever and former safety leader Jan Leike had announced their exits in May. Co-founder John Schulman revealed last month that he was leaving to join rival AI company Anthropic, while another co-founder, Greg Brockman, also announced his sabbatical through the end of the year.
It remains unclear whether this wave of departures will impact the ongoing fundraising efforts.
