Open AI’s media face, its CTO, Mira Murati, has announced her resignation soon from the position. This came as a total shock to the media and public as this move wasn’t an anticipated one.
In a note to the company and then posted to Twitter/X, Mira Murati wrote she was leaving the tech company behind. “After much reflection, I have 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.
CEO Sam Altman offered kind words in response to Murati’s departure on Twitter/X: “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.”
Before this announcement, no one had an inkling of Murati’s resignation. This came as a shocker as Murati continued her work with OpenAI even until recently. She ran demonstrations of its new products during events geared towards software developers and sat for interviews about the company’s work.
Mira Murati took charge of OpenAI in November after its board removed Sam Altman, who rejoined the company as CEO later after pressure from employees and investors. In May, OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, resigned, voicing concerns about the company’s AI safeguards. That same month, former safety lead Jan Leike also left. Co-founder John Schulman departed in August to join Anthropic, an AI competitor backed by Amazon. Just last week, Sutskever revealed he’s starting his own company, backed by a fresh $1bn investment.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is seeking more funding, aiming for a valuation exceeding $100bn. Microsoft has already poured $10bn into the company, securing 49% of its future profits, and is likely to invest further. Thrive Capital has committed $1bn, and reports suggest Nvidia and Apple are also getting involved. OpenAI first made waves with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.