OpenAI gives Greg Brockman more control in massive shake-up, Head of ChatGPT moved: Report
OpenAI has announced a new restructuring within the company amid ongoing litigation with Elon Musk over moving away from its original non-profit mission. Specifically, Musk had sued OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman for misleading him about the company’s intentions and eventually turning the company into a for-profit enterprise that produced enormous wealth for everyone but himself.
What’s changing in the OpenAI restructuring?
Under the new restructuring, Brockman, who served as President of OpenAI, was given more control over the company and will now lead product strategy as well as its ongoing work on AI infrastructure, according to multiple media reports.
According to Wired’s report, Brockman was previously tasked with overseeing OpenAI’s products, while the company’s CEO in charge of AGI deployment was on medical leave, but the change is now official.
“We are combining our product efforts with maximum focus on the future of representation to win across both the consumer and the enterprise,” Brockman said in an internal memo cited by WIRED.
Among other changes, Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI’s head of Codes, is being asked to lead the company’s core product and platform team. Sottiaux is also overseeing the company’s work on an upcoming ‘super app’ that combines Codex, ChatGPT and the Atlas browser on the desktop.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT President Nick Turley is moving into a new position as head of OpenAI’s enterprise products. Turley is said to no longer work on consumer products.
Instead, the consumer products unit will be led by former Instagram VP Ashley Alexander, who now oversees the company’s health products efforts.
OpenAI told WIRED that Simo is still on medical leave and is expected to return. He is also said to be working directly with Brockman on these organizational changes.
Meanwhile, Vijaye Raji, who currently serves as the company’s CTO of applications, is said to have been roped in to work on core infrastructure, ads, data science and growth.
In the note cited by The Verge, Brockman wrote that OpenAI’s goal is to “bring agents to the scale of ChatGPT to deliver significantly more value and benefit to individuals and organizations from our products.”
OpenAI CSK Jason Kwon, CFO Sarah Friar and CRO Denise Dresser will take control of the company’s business operations, according to The Verge.
The new change is said to be part of the company’s shift to focus on core revenue areas such as coding and enterprise users, while halting outflows of money for ‘side roles’ ahead of its potential IPO later this year.
Simo, in particular, told staff earlier this year that the company could not afford to be “distracted by side tasks.” Alarm bells rang for the company, which faced intense competition from Anthropic in terms of coding and enterprise use cases.
Since then, OpenAI has shut down its Sora AI video rendering model and a companion app, started work on the new super app, and launched the OpenAI Distribution Company for the AI consulting and application services industry.
