Member-only story
The OpenAI Exodus
This makes no sense. Or does it?
Back in September 2024, when Americans still had a glimmer of hope for the future, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati randomly quit to “create the time and space to do [her] own exploration.” If you don’t remember Murati, she has some of the most hilarious interviews in the AI world, where she fundamentally misunderstands art, the modern workplace, how AI works, and where OpenAI got its stolen data from. She is the epitome of the out-of-touch tech bro. Then, in October, it was leaked that she was in talks to raise $100 million to create a stealth startup to challenge OpenAI. Well, she has just broken cover and announced her new startup, Thinking Machines Lab, which has poached dozens of leading researchers from OpenAI. This might seem like business as usual in the cutthroat world of corporate America, but if you just dig a little deeper, it makes no sense at all! Why abandon and then challenge a company that seems to be gunning for the top and aggressively destroying all of its competition?
Let’s start with Thinking Machines Lab. Mira Murati unveiled the startup with $100 billion in backing last Tuesday, with her as the CEO, OpenAI’s co-founder and leading AI researcher John Schulman as chief scientist, and OpenAI’s ex-chief research officer Barret Zoph as CTO. These three were crucial to propelling OpenAI to the top of the AI sphere, and all…
