Mira Murati, OpenAI chief technical officer. Image credit: Mira Murati
OpenAI’s former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mira Murati is reportedly raising funds for her new AI startup.
This is according to Reuters, which cited sources familiar with the matter as saying that Murati is raising funds from venture capitalists for her AI startup.
It was only last month when OpenAI had shocked observers when it revealed another round of executive departures, including CTO Mira Murati, VP Research Barret Zoph and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew.
The high level departures comes amid major structural changes to OpenAI’s non-profit status, coupled with a $6 billion (£4.5bn)-plus funding round, which represents a bet by venture capital firms that the company will grow to be worth trillions of dollars.
Murati tweeted at the time that she had “made the difficult position to leave OpenAI”, because she wanted to “create the time and space to do my own exploration.”
She has not tweeted since this announcement.
Her departure reportedly came as a surprise to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, after he said that Murati had only informed him on the morning of her announcement.
According to the Reuters sources, Murati’s AI startup (which has not named) aims to build AI products based on proprietary models.
It is not clear if Murati will assume the CEO role at the new venture, and a representative for Murati reportedly declined to comment.
According to the Reuters source, while the funding talks are in the early stages, Murati’s new venture could raise over $100 million given her reputation and the capital needed to train proprietary models, but cautioned the figures have not been finalised.
Barret Zoph, who left OpenAI on the same day as Murati in late September, could also get involved in the new venture, the sources told Reuters.
Zoph did not respond to requests for comment, Reuters noted.
Mira Murati is not the only former OpenAI employee to leave the AI pioneer and opt to found their own AI startup.
OpenAI co-founder, and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, had left OpenAI in May and almost immediately started his own AI company.
Sutskever’s startup is called Safe Superintelligence Inc.
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