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Mira Murati, OpenAI's chief technology officer, said in a
written statement Wednesday that, after much reflection, she has
“made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI.”
“I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space
to do my own exploration,” she said.
Two other top executives are also on their way out, CEO Sam
Altman announced later Wednesday. The decisions by Murati, as
well as OpenAI's Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and another
research leader, Barret Zoph, were made “independently of each
other and amicably,” Altman said in a note to employees he
shared on social media.
They are the latest high-profile departures from San
Francisco-based OpenAI, which started as a nonprofit research
laboratory and is best known for making ChatGPT. Its president
and co-founder, Greg Brockman, said in August he was “taking a
sabbatical” through the end of the year. Another co-founder,
John Schulman, left in August for rival Anthropic, founded in
2021 by a group of ex-OpenAI leaders.
Yet another co-founder, Ilya Sutskever, who led a team focused
on AI safety, left in May and has started his own AI company.
Days after Sutskever's departure, his safety team co-leader Jan
Leike also resigned and leveled criticism at OpenAI for letting
safety “take a backseat to shiny products.”
Murati spoke positively of the company and Altman in a departing
note to colleagues shared on social media, describing it as “at
the pinnacle of AI innovation” and saying it's hard to leave a
place one cherishes.
Altman expressed his gratitude for Murati's service and said
leadership changes are natural for a fast-growing company.
“I obviously won't pretend it's natural for this one to be so
abrupt, but we are not a normal company,” Altman said in a post
on X that also announced that six other people were taking new
roles.
Murati was suddenly catapulted to be the company's interim CEO
late last year after the board of directors fired Altman,
sparking upheaval in the AI industry. The company later brought
in another interim CEO before restoring Altman to his leadership
role and replacing most of the board members who ousted him.
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