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☆ OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman returns after three months of leave
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-12 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Greg Brockman speaks onstage at "OpenAI Co-founder on ChatGPT, DALL·E, and the Impact of Generative AI" during 2023 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Austin Convention Center on March 10, 2023 in Austin, Texas. OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman has returned to the company as president, three months after announcing he would take a sabbatical "through end of year." In late September, OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati announced she would depart the company after six and a half years. The same day, research chief Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, a research vice president, said they were leaving. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and former safety leader Jan Leike announced their departures in May, with Leike joining rival Anthropic.

Persons: Greg Brockman, OpenAI, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Anthropic ., John Schulman, Lilian Weng, Brockman, Sam Altman, Altman, Altman's Organizations: Austin Convention Center, OpenAI, Leike, Anthropic, Google Locations: Austin , Texas

☆ Meet Liam Fedus, the person responsible for getting OpenAI's new products out the door
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-25 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The post-training team is currently led by Liam Fedus, a researcher who helped develop ChatGPT. Fedus is the third person to lead the in the past six months. Among them is the post-training team, which is responsible for preparing AI models for wide release and has had three leaders in the past six months. Currently leading post-training is Liam Fedus , a machine learning researcher who was part of a group of researchers that developed ChatGPT. Fedus was also one of seven OpenAI researchers who developed a group of advanced reasoning models known as Strawberry .

Persons: Liam Fedus, Fedus, —, Barret Zoph, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew ., Miles Brundage, It's, Sam Altman, Zoph, John Schulman, Anthropic, OpenAI Organizations: Service, MIT Technology, MIT, Fidelity, UC San Diego, collider, University of Montreal, Google, OpenAI Locations: OpenAI, Switzerland

☆ Another safety researcher is leaving OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-24 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Miles Brundage, who advises OpenAI leadership on safety and policy, announced his departure. The AGI Readiness team he oversaw will be disbanded. AdvertisementMiles Brundage, a senior policy advisor and head of the AGI Readiness team at OpenAI, is leaving the company. Brundage is the latest high-profile safety researcher to leave OpenAI. AdvertisementHe's been responsible for some of OpenAI's biggest innovations in safety research, including instituting external red teaming, which involves outside experts looking for potential problems in OpenAI products.

Persons: Miles Brundage, OpenAI, —, Brundage, Jan Leike, Ilya Sutskever, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, He's Organizations: AGI, Service Locations: OpenAI

☆ OpenAI disbands another safety team, head advisor for 'AGI Readiness' resigns
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-24 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

OpenAI is disbanding its "AGI Readiness" team, which advised the company on OpenAI's own capacity to handle increasingly powerful AI and the world's readiness to manage that technology, according to the head of the team. On Wednesday, Miles Brundage, senior advisor for AGI Readiness, announced his departure from the company via a Substack post. Former AGI Readiness team members will be reassigned to other teams, according to the post. Madry will still work on core AI safety work in his new role, OpenAI told CNBC at the time. Leike added that OpenAI must become a "safety-first AGI company."

Persons: OpenAI, Miles Brundage, Brundage, Miles, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph —, Aleksander Madry, Madry, reassign Madry, Sam Altman, it's, Altman, Lina Khan, they've, OpenAI's, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Leike, Greg Brockman, Brockman Organizations: AGI Readiness, CNBC, Security Committee, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Princeton University, Democratic, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, Nvidia Locations: OpenAI

☆ OpenAI gets $4 billion revolving credit line, giving it more than $10 billion in liquidity
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-03 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI has a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion, CNBC has learned. The base credit line is $4 billion, with an option to increase it by an additional $2 billion. Led by Thrive Capital, which planned to invest $1 billion, investors included existing backer Microsoft as well as chipmaker Nvidia. SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, MGX and Tiger Global also participated, according to sources familiar with the situation. Earlier this year, OpenAI was valued at a reported $80 billion, up from $29 billion in 2023.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Altman, Bret Taylor, Sam, Taylor Organizations: CNBC, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, UBS, HSBC, Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Tiger Global, The New York Times Locations: Santander, Wells Fargo, SMBC

☆ Here's where OpenAI's 11 cofounders are now
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-03 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Most of OpenAI's cofounders have left the startup, with some going to rivals. Here's where all 11 of its cofounders are now and how many remain at the $157 billion company. Here's where all of the 11 cofounders are now. According to her LinkedIn profile, she used to work at Facebook as an AI research engineer before joining Stripe as a software engineer in 2016. OpenAI and none of its 11 cofounders immediately responded to Business Insider's requests for comment, made outside normal working hours.

Persons: it's, Sam Altman, —, OpenAI, Mira Murati, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Anthropic, Jason Redmond, Altman, John Schulman Schulman, OpenAI's, Jan Leike, Schulman, Wojciech Zaremba Zaremba, Zaremba, Ekon, Musk, Ilya Sutskever Ilya Sutskever, JACK GUEZ, Getty Sutskever, Sustkever, Sustskever, Greg Brockman Brockman, he's, Kingma, Andrej Karpathy Andrej Karpathy, Karpathy, Vicki Cheung Cheung, Elon, Elon Musk, ALAIN JOCARD, Brockman, cofounding OpenAI, Pamela Vagata Vagata, Trevor Blackwell Blackwell, cofounders Organizations: Here's, Service, Getty, OpenAI's Superalignment, OpenAI, Inc, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Tesla, San Francisco Chronicle, Hearst Newspapers, Getty Images Research, Eureka Labs, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Facebook Locations: AFP, OpenAI, cofounding, Pebblebed

☆ OpenAI closes funding at $157 billion valuation, as Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank join round
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-02 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024. OpenAI has closed its long-awaited funding round at a valuation of $157 billion, including the $6.6 billion the company raised from an extensive roster of investment firms and big tech companies. Thrive planned to invest $1 billion in the round, CNBC previously reported. Earlier this year, OpenAI was valued at a reported $80 billion, up from $29 billion in 2023. There are also 11 million ChatGPT Plus subscribers and 1 million paying business users on ChatGPT, a person close to the company said.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, SoftBank, Sarah Friar, Friar, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Altman, Bret Taylor, Sam, Taylor Organizations: Microsoft, Nvidia, CNBC, New York Times, OpenAI, Italian Tech, Khosla Ventures, Fidelity, MGX, Tiger Global Locations: Redmond , Washington

☆ OpenAI executive says the startup has a 'great bench' after CTO's abrupt departure
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-02 | by ( Rob Price | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI exec Kevin Weil told BI the company has a "great bench" after CTO Mira Murati abruptly quit. AdvertisementThe hundreds of attendees at Ray Summit, an AI conference in San Francisco, were originally hoping to hear from Mira Murati, the chief technology officer of OpenAI, on Wednesday. AdvertisementIn a brief interview with Business Insider immediately afterwards, Weil praised Murati while downplaying the impact of her departure. Weil, a former Instagram executive, highlighted Mark Chen as an example of the talent still around at OpenAI. "So I'm really excited to partner with him and I'm really optimistic about what we're building."

Persons: Kevin Weil, Mira Murati, Weil, —, Murati, Robert Nishihara, OpenAI, Mira, I've, Mark Chen, Chen, you've, I'm, Jane Street, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, superalignment, Jan Leike, John Schulman, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew, Bob, we've, We've Organizations: Service, Ray Summit, Business, Integral Technology, MIT Locations: OpenAI, San Francisco, Silicon

☆ Tiger Global is backing OpenAI in new $6.6 billion investment round
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-02 | by ( Ben Bergman | Sri Muppidi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

OpenAI announced it raised $6.6 billion in new funding at a $157 billion post-money valuation. Tiger Global Management is part of this round, according to two sources familiar with the matter. AdvertisementTiger Global Management is doubling down on OpenAI, investing in the ChatGPT maker's massive new funding round, according to a source familiar with the matter. OpenAI announced Wednesday it raised $6.6 billion in new funding at a $157 billion post-money valuation. AdvertisementThe closure of OpenAI's new funding round comes just a week after three of its top leaders suddenly resigned.

Persons: OpenAI, Tiger, —, couldn't, Chase Coleman, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph Organizations: Tiger Global Management, Service, Global Management, Bloomberg, ARK Venture Fund, Microsoft, Nvidia, Fidelity, Tiger Global, Research, Post

☆ Here's what OpenAI employees are saying about the company's future
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-30 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI plans to restructure into a for-profit company, moving away from nonprofit board oversight. Here's what some former and current employees are saying about the latest changes. AdvertisementAfter a whirlwind week for OpenAI, former and current employees are weighing in on the company's path forward. Gretchen Krueger, a former policy researcher at OpenAI, said the company's nonprofit governance structure and cap on profits were part of the reason she joined in 2019 — the year that OpenAI added a for-profit arm. "Those of us at @OpenAI working on o1 find it strange to hear outsiders claim that OpenAI has deprioritized research.

Persons: —, Mira Murati, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew, Sam Altman, OpenAI, hasn't, Altman, OpenAI's, Jan Leike, Gretchen Krueger, Noam Brown, Brown, Mark Chen, I've, it's Organizations: Service, OpenAI, Italian Tech, Outsiders, o1, Business Locations: Murati

☆ VCs are rushing to meet with former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati in hopes of funding a new company
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-30 | by ( Sri Muppidi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mira Murati announced her departure from OpenAI last week. In an X post, Murati wrote, "I'm stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration." AdvertisementVenture capitalists are clamoring to meet with Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, as Silicon Valley expects her to start her own company soon. In a X post, Murati announced her departure from OpenAI last week. Murati wrote, "My six-and-half years with the OpenAI team have been an extraordinary privilege…There's never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right."

Persons: Mira Murati, OpenAI, Murati, Ilya Sutskever, —, … There's, Andrej Karpathy, Anthropic, Dario Amodei, Aravind Srinivas, Sam Altman, Mira, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, –, Altman, Wojciech Zaremba, Zaremba Organizations: Service, Venture, Business, OpenAI, Eureka Labs, San, supercomputing, Tesla, Microsoft, Altman, Reuters Locations: Silicon, OpenAI, San Francisco

☆ Sam Altman tells OpenAI staff there's no plan for him to receive a 'giant equity stake' in company
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-27 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

At an all-hands meeting Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denied that there are plans for him to receive a “giant equity stake” in the company, calling that information “just not true,” according to a person who was in attendance. Regarding his potentially attaining an equity stake, Altman said, “There are no current plans here,” the person said. OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor told CNBC in a statement that while the board has talked about the matter, no specific figures are on the table. OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, who briefly served as interim CEO, said she would be leaving after 6½ years. Days later, Altman was back at the company and Murati moved from interim CEO back to the role of CTO.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, Sarah Friar, Bret Taylor, Sam, ” Taylor, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, “, ” Altman, ” Murati, OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, John Schulman, Anthropic, it’s, Murati Organizations: CNBC, Italian Tech, Microsoft, Tiger Global Locations: Turin, Italy

☆ OpenAI's CFO is trying to get the company's investors to keep calm and carry on
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-27 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar emailed investors the day after three top execs suddenly left, per CNBC. Friar sought to soothe investor worries, saying the firm is still "laser-focused" on AI that can bring them returns. AdvertisementOpenAI's chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, is trying to assure investors that the company is still in good hands despite the sudden exit of three top executives, according to an email reported by CNBC. The outlet's Kate Rooney cited an email from Friar to OpenAI investors on Thursday night, a day after the firm saw the departure of its chief technology officer, Mira Murati. Murati, McGrew, and Zoph left OpenAI just a month after other top leaders stepped away from the company in August.

Persons: Sarah Friar, execs, Friar, OpenAI, —, Kate Rooney, Mira Murati, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew, helming Nextdoor, nix, Sam Altman, Zoph Organizations: CNBC, Service, Research, Post, Bloomberg, Business Insider Locations: OpenAI

☆ Anthropic's comms chief mocks OpenAI after cofounder's bizarre tweet about jacuzzis and the Middle Ages
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-27 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An Anthropic executive jumped at the opportunity to mock OpenAI in response. AdvertisementTech rivalries are always a hot topic on X, and on Friday, an Anthropic executive couldn't help but take a jab at OpenAI. OpenAI cofounder Wojciech Zaremba took to X on Friday to wax poetic about the latest high-profile departures. He likened the exits of Murati, Zoph, and McGrew to children dying in the Middle Ages. Just hours later she wrote on X, "Happy to report that Anthropic's co-founders all still merrily work at the company.

Persons: OpenAI, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, —, Sam Altman, Altman, Barret Zoph, Wojciech Zaremba, Zaremba, McGrew, Sasha de Marigny, Anthropic, Anthropic's, Anthropic’s, — Sasha de Marigny, John Schulman Organizations: Service, OpenAI Locations: Murati

☆ All the top OpenAI figures who have left since the 2023 attempt to oust CEO Sam Altman
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-27 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

OpenAI has lost a slew of key leaders since last year's effort to push out CEO Sam Altman. Here are 10 OpenAI leaders who have left the company since November. Shortly afterward, CEO Sam Altman said that two other executives, Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, would also leave OpenAI. Like many companies, OpenAI has seen turnover among its highest ranks since its founding in 2015. But since an attempt to oust Altman as OpenAI's CEO last November, the company has lost multiple executives and key leaders.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Mira Murati, —, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Altman, McGrew's, Elon Musk, Altman's, Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, Toner, McCauley, Greg Brockman Organizations: Service, ChatGPT Locations: OpenAI

☆ OpenAI considering restructuring to for-profit, CTO Mira Murati and two top research execs depart
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Hayden Field | Hayden Field Is A Cnbc Reporter | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

The structure would be more straightforward for investors and would make it easier for OpenAI employees to realize liquidity, the source added. News of the discussions comes after OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said Wednesday that she is leaving the company after six and a half years. They’re the latest high-level executive to depart OpenAI, which has exploded in popularity and value since releasing the ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022. Murati became a well-known name when OpenAI’s board abruptly ousted Altman last November and Murati was named interim CEO. Days later, Altman was back at the company and Murati moved back to her former role as CTO.

Persons: Mira Murati, Sam Altman, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Murati, ”, “ There’s, ” Altman, OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, John Schulman, Anthropic, it’s, Altman, OpenAI’s, Sutskever, Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, ” Murati, “, ” McGrew, he’s, Mark Chen, Zoph Organizations: Microsoft, Tiger Global, Nvidia, Apple, Street, Tech Locations: OpenAI

☆ The OpenAI talent exodus has become the joke of the moment in tech world
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Sarah Gray | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Sutskever announced his departure from OpenAI in May and launched his own AI startup focused on safety. Of the 11 cofounders of OpenAI from 2015, only Altman, Brockman (who, again, is on leave), and Wojciech Zaremba remain. Daniel Kokotajlo and William Saunders, who previously worked on OpenAI's governance and safety teams, respectively, left OpenAI in the first half of 2023. AdvertisementAdditionally, OpenAI cofounder John Schulman left in August to join OpenAI rival Anthropic — where Leike also landed. On Wednesday, Meta announced that Meta AI is on track to be "the most used AI assistant in the world."

Persons: —, Mira Murati, Sam Altman, There's, OpenAI, Airbnb, KugtVv9o6N, Matt Turck, Altman, Murati, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Brockman, Sutskever, Sam, Madeline, PnRxZSbGgx — sophie, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Sarah Friar, Jakub Pachocki, Brad Lightcap, Kevin Weil, Wojciech Zaremba, Elon Musk, Musk, Jan Leike, Daniel Kokotajlo, William Saunders, John Schulman, Anthropic, Leike, Andrej Karpathy, Kokotajlo, Fortune Organizations: Service, Bloomberg, Business, Wired, OpenAI, —, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Nvidia, Reuters Locations: OpenAI, Slack, —

☆ CNBC Daily Open: AI-adjacent companies may be the next big play
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. U.S. markets slipped as Asian stocks riseU.S. stocks mostly fell Wednesday. The S&P 500 lost 0.19% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite closed near the flatline. Support for semiconductor plansIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to turn the country into a semiconductor powerhouse.

Persons: Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Narendra Modi, Modi, Meta, Blackstone, Equity's Organizations: CNBC, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, SK Hynix, Indian, Labs Locations: U.S, Hong Kong, India, Asia

☆ AI leaders are reacting to OpenAI's wild 24 hours with a mix of schadenfreude and concern
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Geoff Weiss | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It's been a wild 24 hours at OpenAI. Meanwhile, CEO Sam Altman said Thursday the exec departures were unrelated to restructuring talks. AdvertisementIt's been a wild 24 hours at OpenAI, with three high-level execs leaving the company — including CTO Mira Murati — and reports it's restructuring as a for-profit benefit corporation. Speaking at Italian Tech Week Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the executive departures and restructuring talks were unrelated. "I obviously won't pretend it's natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company," he wrote.

Persons: It's, Sam Altman, —, Mira Murati —, Sam Altman's, execs, Altman, Elon Musk, Gary Marcus —, Altman —, Sora hasn't, Marcus, Nicolas Miailhe, Miailhe, I've, it's, Mark Chen, Bob McGrew Organizations: Service, Italian Tech, OpenAI, Bloomberg, Reuters, Geometric Intelligence, Future Society Locations: —

☆ OpenAI has 4 big challenges it needs to conquer in its quest for AI dominance
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

OpenAI bleeds C-suite executivesAs OpenAI chases a massive fundraising round, the startup continues to deal with a staff exodus. The nonprofit side of OpenAI will still exist and have a minority stake in the for-profit company, the sources told Reuters. "Given the ambitions of OpenAI, a non-profit structure has been too constraining. AdvertisementThe debate over whether OpenAI should be a for-profit company has been a bone of contention for one very vocal tech industry bigwig — Elon Musk. Park, the corporate law expert, told BI that the for-profit governance structure could also leave OpenAI vulnerable to greater government scrutiny.

Persons: —, OpenAI, Mira Murati, Sam Altman's, Murati, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew, Altman, Greg Brockman, Wojciech Zaremba, Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Peter Deng, Sutskever, James, I'd, Slack, Gene Munster, She's, Mira, — Elon, Musk, Gary Marcus, Marcus, Musk's, Mark Zuckerberg, xAI, Sam Altman, Munster Organizations: Service, Technology, Business, Microsoft, Nvidia, Wired, University of California, OpenAI, Bloomberg, Deepwater Asset Management, Reuters, Intelligence, Guardian, Meta Locations: It's, OpenAI, Los Angeles

☆ How we're thinking about 7 portfolio stocks with ties to OpenAI after its latest shakeup
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

We're taking a keen interest because several stocks in the Club portfolio have ties to the startup behind ChatGPT. Co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who had been chief scientist, also left earlier this year and launched a new AI startup. Microsoft Microsoft got the first-mover advantage among big tech firms because of its early investment in OpenAI. As of now, we still haven't heard much about Lilly's exact plan to utilize OpenAI's technology. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman's, There's, Mira Murati, she's, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Altman, Ilya Sutskever, it's, here's, ChatGPT, Jim Cramer, Jim, That's, —, OpenAI's, Jensen Huang, Nikesh Arora, Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley, Morgan, Eli Lilly Eli Lilly, Eli Lilly's, Einstein, Marc Benioff, Jim Cramer's, Sam Altman, Jason Redmond Organizations: Club, Microsoft, Nvidia, Reuters, CNBC, Apple Intelligence, Apple, Bloomberg News, Street, Microsoft Microsoft, Blackwell, Palo, Palo Alto Networks, Employees, OpenAI, Barclays, Jim Cramer's Charitable, AFP, Getty Locations: OpenAI, Redmond, Washington, Palo Alto, Redmond , Washington

☆ OpenAI CFO tells investors funding round should close by next week despite executive departures
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Kate Rooney | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar is looking to reassure its investors that the richly valued artificial intelligence startup is still in a strong position and is poised to close a big funding round soon, despite losing top talent this week. In an email to OpenAI's investors seen by CNBC, Friar addressed the departure of Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, who announced her departure on Wednesday. "I wanted to personally reach out following the news of Mira's departure from OpenAI," Friar wrote in the letter, which was viewed by CNBC. Friar said in the email that the funding round was oversubscribed and would close by next week. "Collectively, we remain laser-focused on bringing AI to everyone and building sustainable revenue models that fuel our operations and deliver value to our investors and employees," Friar wrote.

Persons: Sarah Friar, Friar, Mira Murati, Sam Altman, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, she's, OpenAI, Altman, Murati Organizations: CNBC, Microsoft, Apple Locations: OpenAI, San Francisco

OpenAI is said to be closing a funding round that could value the company at as much as $150 billion. "Kushner is betting the ranch on OpenAI and Sam Altman just as Masa Son pledged 40% of his Vision Fund on Yahoo and Jerry Yang. "Second, Sam Altman has proven himself to be one of the greatest tech founders of this generation. Sam Altman has said that AI superintelligence could be a reality within "a few thousand days ." "Everybody wants Sam Altman at the helm, and they're willing to do anything to keep him as the CEO.

Persons: OpenAI, —, Sam Altman, ChatGPT, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Murati's, John Schulman's, Joe Aaron, Aaron, Capital's Josh Kushner, Kushner, Masa Son, Jerry Yang, Jerry Yang wasn't, Jai Das, Goldman Sachs, who's, Altman, they've, Ben Narasin, They're Organizations: Service, Research, Post, Reuters, Nvidia, Apple, Fund, Yahoo, Sapphire Ventures, Venture Locations: Silicon, UAE, OpenAI

☆ From passion to profit: OpenAI's latest shakeup shows the AI race is about who has the deepest pockets
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Altman could reportedly receive a 7% equity stake, which would be worth about $10.5 billion at OpenAI's new valuation. In March, The New York Times reported Murati raised concerns about Altman's leadership style to the board before the ouster. Barret Zoph, the company's vice president of research, and Bob McGrew, OpenAI's chief research officer, are also departing the startup, Altman announced on X . "I obviously won't pretend it's natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company," Altman wrote.

Persons: —, Sam Altman, Altman, Mira Murati, Slack, Murati, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew, Joel Saget, Jenny Chang, Rodriguez, Meta —, it's, Elon Musk's, OpenAI Organizations: Service, Business, Employees, The New York Times, Lakshmi, OpenAI's, Meta, Reuters, Anthropic Locations: OpenAI, Lakshmi Varanasi

☆ Sam Altman tells OpenAI staff there's no plan for him to receive 'giant equity stake' in company
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

In this photo illustration, the OpenAI logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen with a photo of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. At an all-hands meeting on Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denied that there are plans for him to receive a "giant equity stake" in the company, calling that information "just not true," according to a person who was in attendance. Regarding his potentially attaining an equity stake, Altman said, "There are no current plans here," the person said. Altman said the departures were not related to the company's potential restructuring, contrary to some media reports. Days later, Altman was back at the company and Murati moved from interim CEO back to the role of CTO.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, Sarah Friar, Bret Taylor, Sam, Taylor, Mira Murati, Bob McGrew, Barret Zoph, Murati, OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, John Schulman, Anthropic, it's Organizations: OpenAI, CNBC, Italian Tech, Microsoft, Tiger Global Locations: Turin, Italy

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