Mira Murati, who previously served as OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer, has established a new AI company called Thinking Machines Lab. The startup aims to make artificial intelligence systems more transparent and accessible while bringing together some of the industry's top talent.
The company has already assembled an impressive team of around 30 leading researchers and engineers, with former OpenAI employees making up around two-thirds of the workforce, according to Reuters. Several high-profile additions have joined the leadership team, including OpenAI co-founder John Schulman as chief scientist, former head of special projects Jonathan Lachman, and former vice president Barret Zoph as CTO. The startup has also attracted experts from Google, Meta, Mistral and Character AI.
In a blog post, the company emphasized its belief in open collaboration and said it plans to publish technical blog posts, scientific papers, and code.
Ex-OpenAI executives increasingly launch their own AI ventures
Murati brings more than six years of experience from OpenAI, where she played a key role in developing ChatGPT. Prior to OpenAI, she worked at augmented reality startup Leap Motion and Tesla. The Financial Times reports that Thinking Machines Lab is currently in talks with venture capitalists.
Thinking Machines Lab is part of a growing trend of AI startups founded by former OpenAI executives. Bloomberg reports that Safe Superintelligence (SSI), an AI startup from OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, is close to closing a funding round of over $1 billion that would value the company at more than $30 billion.
