Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati Unveils AI Startup—With a Team of AI Heavyweights!
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AI
NEW DELHI, February 19, 2025, – Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI, has announced the launch of her AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab, six months after her abrupt departure from OpenAI. The company aims to develop AI systems that are safer, more adaptable, and encoded with human values.
Thinking Machines Lab is assembling an elite team of AI researchers and engineers, with around two-thirds coming from OpenAI and others from Meta, Google DeepMind, CharacterAI, and Mistral.
The startup’s leadership includes Barret Zoph as CTO, a former OpenAI researcher, and John Schulman, OpenAI co-founder, as chief scientist. Other key figures include Jonathan Lachman, Lilian Weng, Luke Metz, Sam Shleifer, and Stephen Roller.
Murati, who played a pivotal role in developing ChatGPT at OpenAI, left the company in September 2024 to pursue independent AI research. Her departure was part of a wave of executive exits following governance changes at OpenAI.
Murati shared her vision for Thinking Machines Lab on X (formerly Twitter), stating:
“I started Thinking Machines Lab alongside a remarkable team of scientists, engineers, and builders. We’re building three things:
Helping people adapt AI systems to work for their specific needs
Developing strong foundations to build more capable AI systems
Fostering a culture of open science that helps the whole field understand and improve these systems
Our goal is simple: advance AI by making it broadly useful and understandable through solid foundations, open science, and practical applications.”
The announcement of Thinking Machines Lab follows another high-profile AI startup launch – Safe Superintelligence Inc., founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, which is reportedly seeking a $20 billion valuation.
NEW DELHI, February 19, 2025, – Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI, has announced the launch of her AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab, six months after her abrupt departure from OpenAI. The company aims to develop AI systems that are safer, more adaptable, and encoded with human values.
Thinking Machines Lab is assembling an elite team of AI researchers and engineers, with around two-thirds coming from OpenAI and others from Meta, Google DeepMind, CharacterAI, and Mistral.
The startup’s leadership includes Barret Zoph as CTO, a former OpenAI researcher, and John Schulman, OpenAI co-founder, as chief scientist. Other key figures include Jonathan Lachman, Lilian Weng, Luke Metz, Sam Shleifer, and Stephen Roller.
Murati, who played a pivotal role in developing ChatGPT at OpenAI, left the company in September 2024 to pursue independent AI research. Her departure was part of a wave of executive exits following governance changes at OpenAI.
Murati shared her vision for Thinking Machines Lab on X (formerly Twitter), stating:
“I started Thinking Machines Lab alongside a remarkable team of scientists, engineers, and builders. We’re building three things:
Helping people adapt AI systems to work for their specific needs
Developing strong foundations to build more capable AI systems
Fostering a culture of open science that helps the whole field understand and improve these systems
Our goal is simple: advance AI by making it broadly useful and understandable through solid foundations, open science, and practical applications.”
The announcement of Thinking Machines Lab follows another high-profile AI startup launch – Safe Superintelligence Inc., founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, which is reportedly seeking a $20 billion valuation.
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