Business | Brain drain

What does the OpenAI exodus say about Sam Altman?

Another departure focuses attention on his leadership

Sam Altman and Mira Murati
Photograph: AP
|LOS ANGELES AND SAN FRANCISCO

A few weeks ago people within OpenAI were keen to assure your correspondent that the maker of ChatGPT had matured, following the coup almost a year ago against Sam Altman and the counter-coup shortly afterwards that reinstated him as CEO. But on September 25th not even Mr Altman could sustain the fiction. “We are not a normal company,” he tweeted, admitting he was caught out by the abrupt decision to quit by Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer (pictured with Mr Altman last year).

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