(Bloomberg) -- OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said that executive departures at the artificial intelligence startup were unrelated to a restructuring as the company weighs moving to a for-profit structure.
“I saw some stuff that this was related to a restructure, that’s totally not true,” Altman said on stage at the Italian Tech Week in Turin on Thursday. “This is just about people being ready for new chapters in their lives.”
The company announced Wednesday it was losing a number of executives, including Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew. Altman said he would use the shakeup to “flatten” OpenAI’s structure, naming several employees who’d start reporting directly to him, and promote a “new generation of leaders.”
The executive departures come as the generative AI company, which is currently in talks to raise funds at a $150 billion valuation, is discussing giving Altman an equity stake for the first time and becoming a for-profit business, people familiar with the matter have said.
Discussing OpenAI’s explosive growth, Altman said “there is nothing that anybody could’ve told me to prepare me for what that would be like to live through, just growth like that,” on stage Thursday. “It is crazy and intense and exhausting, but it’s also amazing and I feel a ton of gratitude for it.”
--With assistance from Daniele Lepido.
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