OpenAI might’ve just released its best model yet, but it’s faced yet another resignation from its top deck.
OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has quit the company. She says she will “do her own exploration” after her stint with OpenAI. Murati had spent 6 and a half years at OpenAI, and had been the company’s CTO when it had released its groundbreaking ChatGPT product.
“After much reflection, I have made the difficult decision to leave OpenAl,” she wrote in a mail to employees. “There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right. Our recent releases of speech-to-speech and OpenAl 0-1 mark the beginning of a new era in interaction and intelligence – achievements made possible by your ingenuity and craftsmanship,” she added.
“I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration. For now, my primary focus is doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum we’ve built,” her email continued.
“Together, we’ve pushed the boundaries of scientific understanding in our quest to improve human well-being. While I may no longer be in the trenches with you, I will still be rooting for you all. With deep gratitude for the friendships forged, the triumphs achieved, and most importantly, the challenges overcome together,” her email concluded.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to the email. “It’s hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally. 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. We’ll say more about the transition plans soon, but for now, I want to take a moment to just feel thanks,” he told employees.
Mira Murati’s exit has meant that three of the four most prominent names within the company until a year ago — as captured in the iconic picture below — as no longer with OpenAI. Ilya Sutskever had all but disappeared from the company after leading a failed coup against Sam Altman, and formally resigned earlier this year. He’s now launched SSI, a new company that aims to achieve superintelligence. Meanwhile OpenAI President Greg Brockman is on leave-of-absence till the end of the year. Mira Murati has quit today, which means that CEO Sam Altman is the only senior executive that’s still at OpenAI.
That’s a lot flux in the top deck of a company that’s one of the most valuable startups in the world, and one that has consistently managed to release state-of-the-art AI models since the release of GPT-3. It’s unclear whether these resignations are connected to the coup against Sam Altman, or are independent events, but in addition to growing competition from the likes of Google and Anthropic, OpenAI now has the added challenge of finding a new CXO layer as it looks to maintain its lead in the AI arms race.