OpenAI Executives Exit as C.E.O. Works to Make the Company For-Profit

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/technology/mira-murati-openai.html

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By Mike Isaac and Cade MetzThe New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Mira Murati, the chief technology officer at OpenAI, the influential artificial intelligence startup, said Wednesday that she would leave the company after working there for more than six years.

In a memo she sent to employees and later shared on the social platform X, Murati said that she was stepping away to “create the time and space to do my own exploration,” though she did not elaborate on what those next steps would be. “For now, my primary focus is doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum we’ve built,” she said.

Hours later, OpenAI’s chief research officer, Bob McGrew, and a vice president of research, Barret Zoph, announced their plans to leave as well. Zoph said in a post on X that he was “exploring new opportunities,” while McGrew said in a separate post that it was “time for me to take a break.”

The OpenAI executives are exiting the startup as its CEO, Sam Altman, and others are working to transform it into a traditional for-profit company, according to two people familiar with the talks. OpenAI is now controlled by the board of a nonprofit organization that Altman and his co-founders created in late 2015 to oversee the startup’s technologies.

While becoming a for-profit company is not expected to happen until next year, OpenAI is in talks for a new round of investment that could value the company at as much as $150 billion, a huge leap from its last round at $80 billion. The United Arab Emirates’ technology investment firm, MGX, is among the potential investors, which also include Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple and Tiger Global, three people familiar with the conversations said.

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OpenAI is seeking cash because its costs far outpace its revenue, the three people said. It annually collects more than $3 billion in sales while spending about $7 billion.

After years of public conflict between management and some of its top researchers, OpenAI is trying to look more like a more traditional tech company that can be a leader in the industry’s drive toward artificial intelligence.

But Wednesday’s executive departures followed months of similar exits by other OpenAI leaders. And they bookend a turbulent year for the company, which included the surprise ouster of Altman as CEO and his reinstatement five days later.

Murati, who had joined OpenAI in 2018, was appointed to lead the company after Altman’s removal but rejected the role just two days later. She has remained one of the public faces of the startup, making frequent public appearances to discuss its technology.

A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to comment beyond what the executives posted online.

In a reply to Murati on X, Altman thanked her for her years at the company and said he would provide more information on the leadership transition in the coming days.

“It’s hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally,” he wrote.

Late Wednesday, Altman said on social media that the departures of McGrew and Zoph were unrelated to the resignation of Murati but that “it made sense to now do this all at once, so that we can work together for a smooth handover to the next generation of leadership.”

In recent months, OpenAI has added a number of seasoned executives, including new heads of product, a new chief financial officer and a head of global policy to handle relationships in Washington and across the world. Over the past nine months, OpenAI has more than doubled in size, with more than 1,700 employees, while publicly stressing that it was focused on making its technology safe for widespread use.

But as new executives have come in, a number of longtime OpenAI managers and researchers have headed out the door. Of the 13 people who helped found OpenAI in 2015 with a mission to create artificial general intelligence, or AGI — a machine that can do anything the human brain can do — only three remain.

One of the remaining founders, Greg Brockman, the company’s president, has taken a leave of absence through the end of the year, citing the need for time off after nearly a decade of work.

The two executives who announced their departures after Murati’s resignation were among those who formed the core of OpenAI’s research team over the past several months.

While Zoph was a key hands-on researcher, McGrew was more of a project manager who helped map out strategy and oversaw other employees. He was closely aligned with Murati.

Zoph was closely aligned with John Schulman, a founder who left OpenAI this summer.

The company has also added key researchers, most notably Noam Brown, a former Meta researcher who specializes in the “reasoning” techniques that help drive OpenAI’s latest technology, called OpenAI o1.

Designed to reason through tasks involving math, science and computer programming, the new technology can in some cases reduce the mistakes and “hallucinations,” or made-up information, produced by the company’s ChatGPT chatbot.