OpenAI lost three senior leaders on Friday as Kevin Weil, head of OpenAI for Science, Bill Peebles, creator of AI video tool Sora and B2B engineering head Srinivas Narayanan announced departures following the AI startup’s strategic pullback from consumer-facing moonshot projects.
OpenAI Kills ‘Side Quests’
The exits also come as the Sam Altman-led company cuts back on “side quests” in favor of enterprise AI and its upcoming “superapp.”
Sora, which was incurring an estimated $1 million per day in compute costs, was shut down last month. OpenAI for Science, the internal research group behind Prism, an AI-powered platform promising to accelerate scientific discovery, is being absorbed into “other research teams,” according to Weil’s social media post.
Weil’s departure comes after his team released GPT-Rosalind, a new model to expedite life sciences research and drug discovery.
Peebles, in his X post announcing his departure, credited Sora with sparking a “huge amount of investment in video across the industry.”
Narayanan also confirmed his exit on Friday via X after three years with the company. “Leading the B2B engineering team has been an enormous privilege,” he wrote, citing recent product launches as the right moment to step back.
Leadership In Flux
Earlier this month, OpenAI’s product and business chief, Fidji Simo, announced several leadership changes as she took medical leave due to a worsening neuroimmune condition. These changes included OpenAI President Greg Brockman overseeing product in Simo’s absence and the transition of Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, to a new role focused on “special projects.”
The departures signal a sharp strategic reset at OpenAI during a pivotal year. The company is cutting back on costly consumer-facing efforts, securing a Pentagon contract and laying the groundwork for a potential IPO. All of this comes as rivals continue to close in on its dominance in the enterprise space.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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