Mira Murati is the new interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of OpenAI after the ChatGPT maker’s board said on Friday that it had fired CEO and co-founder Sam Altman. In a statement, the company said that Murati is uniquely qualified for the role and it “anticipates a seamless transition while it conducts a formal search for a permanent CEO.”
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OpenAI said on Friday that it “no longer has confidence” in Altman’s ability to continue leading OpenAI and that his departure follows a deliberative review process by the board.
“We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward. As the leader of the company’s research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO. We have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead OpenAI during this transition period,” OpenAI said.
Who is Mira Murati, the interim CEO of OpenAI?
Mira Murati, 34, has been elevated to the position of interim CEO of OpenAI recently. Born in 1988 in Albania, Murati is a mechanical engineer by training who built a hybrid race car as an undergraduate student at Dartmouth College, according to a report in the New York Times. In her early days, Murati worked as an intern in Goldman Sachs and then moved to Zodiac Aerospace.
She joined OpenAI in 2018 after a stint at Tesla where she played a key role in the development of the Model X car. She also worked in a start up called Leap Motion that developed a computing system to track hand and finger motions. OpenAI promoted her to the role of CTO last year.
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According to OpenAI’s description, “A member of OpenAI’s leadership team for five years, Mira has played a critical role in OpenAI’s evolution into a global AI leader.” She brings a unique skill set, understanding of the company’s values, operations, and business, and already leads the company’s research, product, and safety functions, it said.
Murati said she was “honored and humbled” to step into the leadership role at the company, according to a memo she sent to staff reviewed by news agency Bloomberg.
“We are now at a crucial juncture where our tools are being widely adopted, developers are actively building on our platforms, and policymakers are deliberating on the best ways to regulate these systems,” Murati wrote in the memo.
This is welcome progress and an opportunity to participate in a future where AI is built and used for good, she said.
Meanwhile, during a companywide meeting on Friday, Murati told OpenAI employees that Satya Nadella and Kevin Scott — CEO and CTO, respectively, of Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest backers — had “utmost confidence” in OpenAI’s direction, The Information said in a report.
She reiterated that OpenAI was starting the search for a new CEO.
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OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company founded in 2015. While it was founded as a non-profit organisation, in 2019, OpenAI restructured to ensure that the company could raise capital in pursuit of this mission, while preserving the nonprofit’s mission, governance, and oversight.
