OpenAI Organizational Data

This document compiles all the research gathered on OpenAI’s organizational structure, leadership, departments, and recent departures to create a comprehensive organizational chart.

Corporate Structure

OpenAI has a unique dual structure:

• OpenAI, Inc. (non-profit entity)
• OpenAI LP (capped-profit arm)
• Planning transition to a public benefit corporation (PBC) structure in 2025

Current Leadership Team

1. Sam Altman – CEO
   • Co-founder of OpenAI
   • Background: Former software engineer at Google, founder of Loopt, briefly CEO of Reddit
   • Education: Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in computer science
2. Greg Brockman – President, Chairman, & Co-Founder
   • Currently on sabbatical through end of 2024
   • Background: Former CTO at Stripe (2010-2015)
   • Education: Studied Computer Science at MIT and Mathematics and Computer Science at Harvard University
3. Brad Lightcap – COO
   • Joined OpenAI in 2018, initially as CFO
   • Background: Former investor at Y Combinator, Strategic Finance at Dropbox, Investment Banking Analyst at J.P. Morgan
   • Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Economics & History from Duke University
4. Srinivas Narayanan – VP of Applied
   • Responsible for driving product efforts including ChatGPT and APIs
   • Background: Former VP of engineering at Facebook, Co-founder and CTO at Viralizr, Director of Technology at Tavant Technologies
   • Education: Bachelor’s degree from IIT and MS in CS from the University of Wisconsin
5. Bryan Banisaba – Chief of Staff
   • Background: Former technical product manager at Chime, product integrity lead at Facebook, strategy and operation lead at Google, program lead at Airbnb
   • Education: Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and MHA from the University of Southern California
6. Janine Korvesis – VP of Finance
   • Background: Former project controller at X (the moonshot factory), global revenue accountant at Google, senior corporate accounting lead at Accretive Health
   • Education: BBA and MA in accounting from the University of Michigan

Recent Departures (2024)

1. Mira Murati – Former CTO
   • Left in September 2024 after more than 6 years
   • Served as interim CEO during Altman’s brief ousting in 2023
   • Background: Former VP of product and engineering at Leap Motion, senior product manager at Tesla
2. Bob McGrew – Former Chief Research Officer
   • Left in September 2024
   • Background: Former roles at PayPal and Palantir
3. Barret Zoph – Former VP of Research
   • Left in September 2024
   • Background: Former research scientist at Google
4. Ilya Sutskever – Former Chief Scientist and Co-Founder
   • Left in May 2024 after nearly a decade
   • Was part of the board that temporarily ousted Altman in 2023
   • Founded Safe Superintelligence after leaving
5. Jan Leike – Former Co-head of Super Alignment Team
   • Left shortly after Sutskever in May 2024
   • Cited disagreements about company priorities
   • Joined Anthropic as head of alignment science
6. John Schulman – Former Head of Alignment Science
   • Co-founder who left in August 2024
   • Joined Anthropic
7. Peter Deng – Former VP of Consumer Product
   • Left in July 2024
   • Background: Former product leader at Uber and Meta
8. Andrej Karpathy – Former Research Scientist
   • One of OpenAI’s 11 founders
   • Left for the second time in February 2024
   • Founded Eureka Labs, an AI education startup

Organizational Structure

OpenAI has a unique two-layer organizational structure:

• Leadership team and board
• Flat employee structure with no middle management

The company uses a “pod” system of small, autonomous teams:

• Approximately 80 pods with 475 engineers total
• Typical pod composition:
  • 5-9 members per pod (typically 6)
  • 1 Pod Owner (Technical Lead)
  • 2-3 Senior Engineers
  • 1-2 ML Specialists
  • 1 Quality Assurance Expert

Major Departments/Teams

Executive Leadership

• CEO: Sam Altman
• President: Greg Brockman (on sabbatical)
• COO: Brad Lightcap
• VP of Applied: Srinivas Narayanan
• Chief of Staff: Bryan Banisaba
• VP of Finance: Janine Korvesis

Safety Systems Team

• Responsible for ensuring AI models can be safely deployed
• Conducts safety assessments and develops safety methods
• Works on safety reward models and multimodal classifiers
• Previously had a “Super Alignment Team” (disbanded in 2024)

Research Teams

• Research Engineers/Scientists focused on various aspects of AI development
• Specializations include:
  • Safety Reasoning
  • Robustness & Safety Training
  • Multimodal Safety
  • Trustworthy AI

Engineering Teams

• Applied Engineering team (led by Srinivas Narayanan, VP of Applied)
• Responsible for products like ChatGPT and APIs

Security Teams

• Data Center Security
• Network security, identity management, and access control

Product Teams

• Product development and commercialization
• Previously led by Peter Welinder (former VP of Product & Partnerships)

Safety and Security Committee

• Responsible for making recommendations on critical safety and security decisions
• Formed after the departure of the Super Alignment Team

Board of Directors

Current board members are not fully documented in the research, but the board underwent significant changes after the November 2023 leadership crisis when Sam Altman was briefly ousted and then reinstated.

Reporting Structure

OpenAI has a flat organizational structure with:

• Direct reporting to executive leadership
• Pod-based team organization with pod owners rather than traditional managers
• Cross-functional teams with domain ownership
• Democratic decision-making within pods