OpenAI CTO Mira Murati departs, and two top research execs follow

OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said Wednesday that she's leaving the company after six and a half years.

Later in the day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said research chief Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, a research vice president, are also departing, as the high-valued artificial intelligence startup continues to lose top talent.

Murati wrote in a memo to the company that she's "stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration." She said her focus will be on ensuring a "smooth transition."

"After much reflection, I have made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI," she wrote in the memo, which she also published on social media site X. "There's never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right."

Shortly after Murati's announcement, Reuters said OpenAI is planning to restructure to a for-profit business that no longer reports to a non-profit board. The company will retain its non-profit segment, according to Reuters.

Altman wrote in a late afternoon post on X that McGrew and Zoph were leaving, and that their decisions were independent of each other.

"The timing of Mira's decision was such that it made sense to now do this all at once, so that we can work together for a smooth handover to the next generation of leadership," Altman wrote.

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. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and former safety leader Jan Leike announced their departures in May. Co-founder John Schulman said last month that he was leaving to join rival Anthropic.

OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, is currently pursuing a funding round that