In a surprising turn of events today, OpenAI abruptly ousted Sam Altman, its CEO and board member, and appointed CTO Mira Murati as the interim CEO. The question arises: Who is Mira Murati?
Murati, holding a degree in mechanical engineering from Dartmouth College, initially interned at Goldman Sachs and later worked at Zodiac Aerospace, the French aerospace group. Her tenure at Tesla spanned three years, during which she served as the senior product manager for the automaker’s crossover SUV, the Model X, and played a key role in the early releases of Autopilot, Tesla’s AI-driven driver-assistance software.
In 2016, Murati ventured into Leap Motion, a startup specializing in hand- and finger-tracking motion sensors for PCs, where she assumed the role of VP of product and engineering. Her vision was to make computer interaction as intuitive as playing with a ball, a concept centered around motion sensor technology. However, she recognized its premature stage, especially given its reliance on a VR headset.
Joining OpenAI in 2018 as VP of applied AI and partnerships, Murati ascended to the role of CTO in 2022. Her leadership marked notable achievements, including the development of the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, the text-to-image AI DALL-E, and the code-generating system Codex, which powers GitHub’s Copilot.
As the interim CEO, the question arises regarding Murati’s approach. Will she maintain stability during the search for a permanent replacement, or will she instigate change? Insights from her interviews suggest a strong belief in multimodal models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 with Vision, as the company’s future and a promising avenue toward highly capable AI. Murati emphasizes testing this AI openly to identify flaws and explore novel use cases.
In her words to Fast Company, Murati emphasized the importance of robustly understanding the world through technologies like DALL-E. She advocates for placing technology in real-world contexts, learning from its usage, identifying limitations, and incorporating these insights into ongoing development.
Reports from a company wide meeting indicate Murati projecting confidence. She assured OpenAI employees that Satya Nadella and Kevin Scott, CEO and CTO of Microsoft and major backers of OpenAI, express “utmost confidence” in the company’s direction. Murati reiterated Open AI’s commitment to finding a new CEO as the search begins.
