Since ChatGPT took the world by the end of 2022, OpenAI’s revenue and market value have increased significantly. But internally, the company hasn’t had a smooth ride. The AI giant, valued at $150 billion, has lost a number of top executives this year. Only on Wednesday (September 25), three leaders, including chief technology officer Mira Murati, chief research officer Bob McGrew, and VP of research Barret Zoph, all announced their departure. They join a large group of former OpenAI employees who have left for rival AI developers and startups. To date, CEO Sam Altman is one of only two remaining members of the company’s original 11-person founding team.
OpenAI didn’t just lose employees—it also hired a familiar face. In May, OpenAI welcomed Kyle Kosic, who worked at the company between 2021 and 2023, to its technical staff. Kosic left last year to join Elon Musk’s xAI. Several other outgoing OpenAI employees have taken similar routes and gone on to work for competing AI companies, which shows how competitive the industry is right now.
Here’s a look at some of the top leaders OpenAI has missed in 2024 so far:
Andrej Karpathy, research scientist
Andrej Karpathy has left OpenAI not once but twice. One of OpenAI’s 11 founders, Karpathy helped build the company’s team in computer vision, generative modeling and reinforcement learning. He started traveling in 2017 to lead Tesla’s Autopilot effort. Returning to OpenAI in 2023, Karpathy also left in February this year to focus on “personal projects.” He then founded Eureka Labs, an AI education startup.
Ilya Sutskever, principal scientist and head of the large alignment team
A well-known machine learning researcher, Ilya Sutskever helped found OpenAI nearly a decade ago and served as the company’s chief scientist. He was also a member of the four-person board that temporarily ousted Altman last year before reinstating him. Sutskever, who was eventually removed from the board, later said he regretted having a hand in his temporary removal. In May, he announced his departure from OpenAI and said he would turn his back on the “personally important” business.
The project was unveiled as Safe Superintelligence, a startup focused on developing a safe form of artificial general intelligence (AGI), a type of AI that can think and learn on par with humans. Earlier this month, the company was valued at $5 billion after raising $1 billion from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.
Jan Leike, co-head of the high alignment group
Just days after Sutskever’s departure, OpenAI CEO Jan Leike also announced his resignation. Sutskever and Leike cooperated with the company’s security team, which has since been disbanded. Leike said he decided to leave in part because of disagreements with OpenAI’s leadership “about what is important to the company,” citing a lack of safety procedures around developing AGI. Leike has taken on a new role as head of alignment science at Anthropic, an OpenAI competitor founded by former OpenAI employees Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei.
John Schulman, head of alignment science
John Schulman, co-founder of OpenAI, made a significant contribution to the creation of ChatGPT. After With Leike’s departure, Schulman became head of OpenAI’s integration science effort and was appointed to its new security committee in May.. That is why Schulman’s decision in August to withdraw from the company was surprising, especially when he revealed that he was about to join Anthropic. “This decision stems from my desire to deepen my focus inside-the-line AI and start a new chapter in my career where I can return to technical work,” said Schulman to X, where he also clarified his decision to step down. from OpenAI was not linked to the lack of support for alignment research.
Peter Deng, vice president of consumer product
Peter Deng, OpenAI’s chief product officer, also decided to leave the company earlier this year. Having first joined OpenAI last year, he ended his role as vice president of product in July, according to his LinkedIn profile. Deng, who also previously held product leadership positions at companies such as Uber ( UBER ) and Meta ( META ), has not publicly revealed his next steps.
Greg Brockman, president
Greg Brockman, often seen as Altman’s right-hand man, has not technically left the company but is taking a sabbatical at the end of 2024. In August, he announced his time off and described it as “the first time off since. founded OpenAI nine years ago.” Brockman started as OpenAI’s chief technology officer before becoming the company’s president in 2022. He indicated that he plans to return to OpenAI, noting that “the work is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.”
Mira Murati, chief technology officer
Mira Murati, one of OpenAI’s most public-facing figures, resigned earlier this week after more than six years with the company. “I’m resigning because I want to create time and space to examine myself,” said Mrati, who served as chief executive when Altman was temporarily removed last year, to X. Adding that he will “still focus” on OpenAI, Murati said his current focus is “doing everything I can to ensure a smooth transition, and to maintain the momentum we’ve built.” Altman praised his leadership in a statement to X, describing Murati as instrumental in “developing OpenAI from an unknown research lab to a significant company.”
Bob McGrew, chief research officer
Shortly after Murati’s resignation, Bob McGrew, OpenAI’s chief research officer, also announced plans to leave the company. He just said to X, “It’s time for me to take a break.” Having previously worked at PayPal (PYPL) and Palantir, McGrew started as a member of OpenAI’s technical staff and has been serving as OpenAI’s chief research officer since August.
Barret Zoph, vice president of research
Barrett Zoph is the third official to announce his resignation this week. Like his two colleagues, Zoph said “it’s a personal decision based on how I want to evolve in the next phase of my career.” Zoph, a former research scientist at Google (GOOGL), joined OpenAI in 2022 and played a major role in overseeing the OpenAI team after training.
Murati, McGrew and Zoph made their decisions independently, according to Altman, but decided to go together “so we can work together to provide the next generation of leadership smoothly.” The CEO admitted that, while leadership turnover is not natural, “we are not a normal company.”
