Former OpenAI Leaders Join Mira Murati’s AI Startup Thinking Machines Lab

Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI, has attracted key figures from her previous company to join her new AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab. The company recently added Bob McGrew, former Chief Research Officer at OpenAI, and Alec Radford, a leading researcher behind foundational AI models, as advisors. McGrew was part of OpenAI since 2017 and helped lead its research division, while Radford was instrumental in the development of GPTs, Whisper, and DALL-E. Both left OpenAI in 2024 to pursue different paths but have now aligned with Murati’s new vision. Thinking Machines Lab, led by Murati as CEO, also includes other notable ex-OpenAI figures such as John Schulman as Chief Scientist and Barret Zoph as CTO. Although the startup has not revealed many details about its product roadmap, it has expressed a mission to build AI systems that are more customizable, understandable, and broadly capable. Murati’s departure from OpenAI in October 2024 followed six years of leadership in some of the company’s most impactful projects, including ChatGPT and Codex. The company reportedly has dozens of employees from elite AI labs and was in talks to raise over $100 million in venture funding.