All about global growth: Altman changes OpenAI leadership

Sam Altman wants to focus more on “leading research and product efforts,” he told Bloomberg. OpenAI had previously published a blog post announcing three personnel changes. The position of Chief Technical Officer, which Mira Murati held until her departure, will not be filled. Instead, there are three C-level positions whose responsibilities will be expanded. This is also partly due to the departure of other employees, for example, the former Chief Scientists Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph also left the company with Murati in the fall.

Mark Chen is Chief Research Officer. According to the blog post, he is tasked with driving scientific progress and now also increasingly “exploring the limits of performance and safety”. Under his leadership, research and product development are to grow closer together, apparently with the aim of bringing new products to market even faster. Something that former employees and outsiders criticize OpenAI for: The company is said to not care enough about the security and testing of its products.

Chief Operating Officer is Brad Lightcap, one of Altman's long-time companions. In the future, he will manage OpenAI's day-to-day business and drive global growth. Lightcap joined OpenAI in 2018 as Chief Financial Officer. However, Altman and Lightcap already knew each other from Y Combinator, a large investment firm in Silicon Valley.

Julia Villagra is the new Chief People Officer. She will also be responsible for ensuring that OpenAI scales globally, i.e., grows in terms of personnel, and “that OpenAI remains the first port of call for people who want to build AGI.” Altman writes on the blog post that although he has not known Villagra for very long, he is impressed by how well she understands the challenges of such a fast-growing company.

Of course, OpenAI's primary goal remains to develop an AGI, i.e., general artificial intelligence that is smarter than humans and benefits everyone. However, the definition of an AGI can vary greatly. OpenAI and Microsoft have stipulated in a contract that the goal of an AGI is achieved when AI exceeds a profit mark of 100 billion US dollars.

(emw)