September 27 (Editor Zhao Hao) According to media reports, Sarah Friar, chief financial officer of American artificial intelligence company OpenAI, told investors that despite the loss of many top talents this week, the company is still in a strong position and is expected to complete a round of large-scale financing soon.
The media saw an email sent by Friar to OpenAI investors, in which she mentioned the departure of Chief Technology Officer Mira Murat, saying, "Although leadership changes are never easy, I want to make sure you understand the whole situation
On Thursday, Murati announced her resignation on social media platform X. Friar wrote, 'We are immensely proud of everything she (Murati) has helped build,' and pointed out that OpenAI still has a 'talented leadership team' competing in the industry.
OpenAI has received support from Microsoft and has recently partnered with Apple on AI for the iPhone. The company is currently in a $6.5 billion funding round, with a potential valuation of $150 billion. Thrive Capital is leading this round of financing and plans to invest $1 billion.
Friar stated in an email that this round of financing has been oversubscribed and is expected to end next week. She added that her team plans to hold a series of conference calls with investors to introduce key leaders of the product and research teams.
Friar wrote, "We remain focused on bringing AI to everyone, building sustainable revenue models to support our operations, and creating value for investors and employees." She said the company "looks forward to you entering the next chapter with us.
Murati& Altman
It is understood that Murati has been working at OpenAI for six and a half years, and last year she briefly took over as interim CEO. At that time, Altman was quickly reinstated, and Murati returned to the position of Chief Technology Officer.
In addition to Murati, co founders John Schulman and Jan Leike resigned last month to join competitor Anthropic; Co founder Ilya Sutskever founded her own AI startup SSI; Co founder Greg Brockman is on a long-term vacation.
Friar stated that Mark Chen, Vice President of Research, will be promoted to Senior Vice President of Research, while Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer, and Srinivas Narayanan, Vice President of Engineering, will continue to lead the application team. "They are the right people to push the boundaries of innovation
According to attendees, Altman denied at the OpenAI plenary session on Thursday his plan to acquire a "huge stake" in the company, stating that the news was not true.