Core technology OpenAI officer Mira Murati resigned Wednesday, saying she wanted “time and space to do my own research.” Muratti was among three top executives at the company behind ChatGPT, and she briefly served as its leader last year while board members grappled with the fate of CEO Sam Altman.
“There’s never a perfect time to move away from a place you love, but this moment feels right,” she wrote in a message to OpenAI staff that she posted on X.
Altman responded to Muratti’s X post that “it’s hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to all of us personally.” He added that he feels “personal gratitude to her for the support and love through all the difficult times “.
In a longer post on X Wednesday night, Altman elaborated. “Mira has contributed to the progress and growth of OpenAI over the past 6.5 years; she was an extremely important factor in our development from an unknown research laboratory to an important company,” he wrote. “When Mira informed me this morning that she was leaving, I was saddened, but of course I support her decision.”
In the same post, Altman also announced the departures of principal investigator Bob McGrew and vice president of research Barrett Zoff. A successor to Muratti was not immediately announced; Altman described the restructured leadership team in light of McGrew and Zoff’s departure from the company.
Muratti, through a personal spokesman, declined to provide further comment. OpenAI also declined to comment, referring inquiries to Muratti’s tweet.
Muratti previously worked at Tesla and Leap Motion before joining OpenAI in 2018. At the time, OpenAI was a small non-profit research lab focused on developing an AI system capable of mirroring a wide range of human tasks. But as a result of ChatGPT’s stunning success, the organization grew and its focus became increasingly commercial. The company is rethinking its for-profit structure as investors grow increasingly eager to bet billions of dollars on its future.
Muratti came to OpenAI believing that AI would be “the most important set of technologies that humanity has ever created,” she told Fortune last year. “OpenAI’s mission really resonates with me, to build technology that benefits people.”
