– OpenAI Leadership: What OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, COO Brad Lightcap have to say on Sam Altman’s sacking

OpenAI’s former CEO Sam Altman has now joined Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team and it seems that the co-founder’s colleagues are not taking it well. The top leadership, along with some other employees in higher roles are dejected about how things have gone at the company over the weekend.
OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, COO Brad Lightcap, chief strategy officer Jason Kwon, Maddie Simens of the product design team, and engineer and member of technical staff Chelsea Sierra Voss – all have posted the same message on X (formerly Twitter).
“OpenAI is nothing without its people,” the messages from these leaders read.

Notably, Microsoft has also hired Greg Brockman, who is the co-founder and served as OpenAI company president. After Altman’s firing, Brockman announced that “based on today’s news, I quit.” A report suggested that three OpenAI leaders have also quit.
According to The Information, investors also expect a mass exodus from the company and competitors, including Cohere and Adept have reportedly made efforts to recruit employees from the ChatGPT maker.
Meanwhile, Google DeepMind, Google’s arm that works on AI products and was founded earlier this year, has also seen an uptick in new resumes from employees working at OpenAI.
Ex-Twitch boss is OpenAI’s new CEO
OpenAI appointed ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear to lead the company. The move came soon after negotiations to reinstate Altman as CEO of the company fell apart. Both investors and employees pushed the board, which fired Altman on Friday, to bring him back.
Meanwhile, Altman posted an image of himself on X wearing an OpenAI guest badge with the caption: “first and last time i ever wear one of these.”
In a separate post on X, he reshared Nadella’s message saying “the mission continues”.