(Reuters) – Microsoft-backed OpenAI is planning to restructure its core business into a for-profit benefit corporation no longer controlled by its non-profit board, Reuters reported on Wednesday, even as another senior executive departed.
The ChatGPT-maker could be worth $150 billion after the restructuring, and CEO Sam Altman will also receive equity for the first time, the report added. The news comes as Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, announced she would leave, following a series of other senior executives.
Here is a list of some notable departures and additions.
OpenAI had 11 founding members, including Altman and Elon Musk, who were the group’s co-chairs. Only two of the original members, Altman and Wojciech Zaremba are still with the company.
Date Personnel Changes
Feb. 13 Andrej Karpathy, an artificial intelligence
researcher and one of the founding members of
OpenAI leaves the company. Karpathy in July
announced that he was starting an AI-integrated
education platform named Eureka Labs.
March 8 CEO Sam Altman returns to OpenAI’s board along
with three new directors: Sue Desmond-Hellmann,
a former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, Nicole Seligman, a former president
of Sony Entertainment, and Fidji Simo, CEO of
Instacart.
Altman was fired from his role in November,
with OpeanAI’s board blaming his lack of candor
and its need to defend OpenAI’s mission to
develop AI that benefits humanity, but swiftly
returned as CEO.
May 14 OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya
Sutskever, who was on its board and helped
orchestrate Altman’s firing, exits the startup.
Safe Superintelligence (SSI), newly co-founded
by Sutskever, raised $1 billion in cash to help
develop safe artificial intelligence systems in
September.
June 10 OpenAI hires Sarah Friar, the former CEO of
social media firm Nextdoor, as its first chief
financial officer. Also appointed Kevin Weil,
who has previously worked at Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram, as chief product officer.
Aug. 5 John Schulman, one of the co-founders of
OpenAI, departs the ChatGPT maker for rival
Anthropic, while the company’s president and
co-founder Greg Brockman also took a sabbatical
through the end of the year.
Aug. 8 Appoints Zico Kolter, professor and
director of the machine learning department at
Carnegie Mellon University, to its board.
Kolter, whose work predominantly focuses on AI
safety, will also join OpenAI board’s safety
and security committee.
Sept. 25 Mira Murati, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer
leaves the firm after six-and-a-half years. She
had served as CEO briefly when Altman was
sacked by the company’s board.
(Reporting by Juveria Tabassum and Juby Babu; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
