Meet Mira Murati: OpenAI’s New Interim CEO Taking Over After Sam Altman’s Departure

In a surprising development, OpenAI has announced the removal of Sam Altman from his position as CEO. Following this decision, Greg Brockman, the chairman of the board and company president, also resigned. As an interim measure, Mira Murati, the chief technology officer (CTO), has been appointed as the interim CEO while the search for a permanent replacement is underway. Now, let’s delve into who Mira Murati is.

Mira Murati was announced as interim CEO, with an official statement saying: “As a member of OpenAI’s management team for five years, Mira has been instrumental in developing OpenAI into a global AI leader. She brings a unique set of skills, an understanding of the company’s values, operations and business and is already leading the company research, product and security functions.Given his long tenure and close involvement in all aspects of the company, including his experience in AI governance and policy, the board believes he is uniquely qualified for the role and expects a seamless transition while it formally searches for a permanent CEO.

Who is Mira Murati?

Mira Murati was born in Albania in 1988. She later moved to the United States to complete her education and holds a mechanical engineering degree from Dartmouth College. Even before graduating, he had worked at Goldman Sachs and worked for a year at the aerospace company Zodiac Aerospace.

Murati worked at Tesla for three years as a senior product manager on the Model X, the company’s crossover SUV model. In 2016, he joined Leap Motion, a startup focused on building finger and hand tracking sensors for computers. He joined the company as product and design director.

His career spanned the new era of technology companies, all of which were trying to build innovatively designed products. In 2018, he joined OpenAI as VP of Applied AI and Partnerships. While at the company, he worked on AI chatbot ChatGPT, AI image generator DALL-E, and Github-powered Codex. He was promoted to CTO in 2022.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote about Murat in Time magazine in September, saying, “He has a demonstrated ability to assemble teams with technical expertise, commercial acumen and a deep appreciation for the importance of the mission. As a result, Mira has helped build some of the most exciting AI technologies we’ve ever seen, including ChatGPT, DALL-E and GPT-4”.