🕵️What Is OpenAI Mafia Doing in 2024?
The founders from OpenAI's Mafia are worth billions. How high will that figure go?
I think it's time to talk about what's happening inside OpenAI. Over the last year, the company has lost more than 20 (!) essential talents. We can speculate for a long time why they left, but it's more important to answer the following: where are they going?
To answer this question, we've investigated dozens of news articles, leaks, social media posts, and private memos. And now, we're ready to share our findings on how OpenAI’s Mafia has evolved over the past year.
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Exodus of OpenAI’s Top Talent
“Leadership changes are a natural part of companies, especially companies that grow so quickly and are so demanding”
- Sam Altman, from the latest memo to staff.
Are you familiar with the concept of OpenAI's Mafia? It's a group of former OpenAI employees who left the company to start their own ventures, primarily in AI. Since OpenAI was founded in 2015, this group has grown to more than 30 entrepreneurs who have raised billions for their projects. The list of members is long:
Anthropic founders, Daniela Amodei and Dario Amodei, whose startup is a major player in the chatbot market. Right now, it is in early talks to raise new funding on up to a $40B valuation
Founder of xAI (and you know what else companies) Elon Musk, whose startup created the AI model Grok and was valued at $24B.
Aravind Srinivas, co-founder of Perplexity, one of the most popular AI-powered search engines. It's planning to reach an $8B valuation soon.
I could go on, but it would take too long. Here the slightly outdated picture below indicates who is part of this mafia:
The thing is, the mafia has continued to grow lately (thanks primarily to Exodus). Today, I want to discuss this with those who will be joining the new lineup.
I suggest starting almost a year ago, more precisely, from November 2023, when Sam Altman was fired from OpenAI and then returned as the head of the company (a very corny comparison to Steve Jobs is called for here, which you can come up with yourself). We still don't know all the details, but we understand that the underhanded games started during this period.
I also find it very amusing that the story of the OpenAI layoffs began... Well... With the firing of Altman himself, the company's CEO.
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In November, the board announced that it no longer had confidence in Sam Altman's ability to lead OpenAI, citing that he had “not always been forthright in his communications.” However, it quickly became clear that the board had underestimated Altman's importance. So, just within days, the OpenAI founder was reinstated. And then a lot of things changed.
Here's a list of the most significant professionals who have left in 2024:
Andrej Karpathy: Founding member & VP of Research, left in February 2024
Jan Leike: Co-head of the Superalignment team, left in May 2024
Ilya Sutskever: Co-founder & Chief Scientist, left in May 2024
Diane Yoon: VP of People, left in May 2024
Chris Clark: Head of Nonprofit and Strategic Initiatives, left in May 2024
Peter Deng: VP of Consumer Product, left in August 2024
John Schulman: Co-founder & Research Scientist, departed in August 2024
Mira Murati: Chief Technology Officer, left in September 2024
Bob McGrew: Chief Research Officer, departed in September 2024
Barret Zoph: VP of Research, exited in September 2024
Tim Brooks: Executive on the Sora project, departed in October 2024
Greg Brockman: President, on leave of absence until the end of 2024
I didn't include people like Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley because they are less relevant to OpenAI products. But you can also keep in mind that the Board of Directors has undergone a major transformation.
The reasons for departures vary and are not always publicly disclosed. Some speculate it could be due to philosophical differences, competitive offers from rivals, or disagreements over the company's direction as it transitions from a nonprofit to a more commercially oriented entity.
But facts are facts; OpenAI has lost a lot. (And the Mafia got new members)
Ex-OpenAI Talents Have Something to Do
Now, let's take a look at what these talents are doing.
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