OpenAI Executive Srinivas Narayanan Announces Departure

Srinivas Narayanan, an executive at OpenAI, will leave the company at the end of next week. He has worked at the artificial intelligence firm for three years.

Narayanan stated he informed OpenAI's leadership team of his decision at the start of the month.

Statements on His Departure

In a message to his team, Narayanan reflected on his tenure:

Leading the B2B engineering team was "an enormous privilege."

He noted that the last three years "felt more like ten" due to the intense pace of work. He cited recent and upcoming product launches as making this "the right time to step back."

Narayanan highlighted his prior role leading the Applied Engineering team when it had approximately 40 people. He credited his team for shipping foundational products like ChatGPT and the API, stating they had "no real playbook to guide us."

He thanked OpenAI leadership, including Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Fidji Simo, for the opportunity.

Background and Next Steps

Narayanan's roles at OpenAI included leading the B2B engineering team and, previously, the Applied Engineering team.

Regarding his immediate plans, he stated he intends to spend time with his aging parents in India before deciding on his next career move.