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tencent technology news, september 26, according to foreign media reports, on wednesday local time in the united states, mira murati, chief technology officer of artificial intelligence startup openai, announced that she would end her six and a half years of career in the company.

"after much consideration, i have made the difficult decision to leave openai," murati wrote in a memo to all employees that was later published on her social media accounts. she added: "while there is never a good time to leave a place filled with cherished memories, i am at peace with this moment."

regarding the reason for his resignation, murati said: "i hope to make room and time to explore new personal areas. at present, my first priority is to ensure a smooth transition and maintain and continue the good momentum we have built together."

murati is the latest executive to leave openai in recent days, following the departures of co-founder ilya sutskever and former head of safety jan leike in may, and co-founder john schulman saying last month he was leaving to join rival anthropic.

it is worth noting that openai is preparing for a new round of financing. according to internal sources, this round of financing will make the company's valuation exceed 150 billion us dollars. this round of financing is led by thrive capital, which plans to invest 1 billion us dollars, and is joined by well-known investment institutions such as tiger global. in addition, technology giants such as microsoft, nvidia and apple are also negotiating on investment matters.

although openai has maintained a rapid development momentum since chatgpt was launched at the end of 2022, it has also been accompanied by many controversies and frequent departures of senior personnel. some current and former employees have expressed concerns about the company's rapid development, believing that this may lead to omissions in security operations.

in june, muratti sparked widespread discussion at the wsj tech live conference, where she bluntly pointed out that emerging artificial intelligence tools could put some creative jobs at risk of disappearing.

in a subsequent interview, she further elaborated: "although some creative work may be reduced as a result, if the content produced by these jobs does not meet extremely high quality standards, then perhaps they are not indispensable from the beginning. however, i firmly believe that if artificial intelligence can be regarded as a tool for education and creativity, it will greatly expand the boundaries of our wisdom and stimulate unlimited creativity and imagination."

last november, openai underwent a senior management change, with ceo sam altman abruptly removed from his position by the board of directors and mulati appointed as interim ceo, a change that quickly thrust mulati into the public eye.

according to a statement from the openai board of directors at the time, altman was removed for "lack of candor in communication." the media revealed that sutskevi and others had differences with altman on the development of artificial intelligence. the former focused on the safety and ethics of artificial intelligence, while the latter was more active in promoting technological innovation.

this incident triggered a strong reaction from employees, and almost all of them signed an open letter expressing their intention to resign. however, the situation quickly reversed, and a few days later, altman returned to the company, and murati returned to the position of chief technology officer. at the same time, board members helen toner and tasha mccauley left one after another, and sutskevi also left the board, but remained an employee of the company at the time.

altman made a public response to murati's resignation on social media.

"mira, thank you for everything you have done for openai. your contributions to the company, our mission, and each of us are beyond words.

i sincerely thank you for the days you have led us through. everything you have built and every project you have promoted will become our precious wealth. but for me personally, what i am most grateful for is your selfless support and deep care for me in those challenging and difficult times. this strength has made me more determined to move forward.

i look forward to your new journey and believe that with your talent and passion, you will be able to create a more brilliant chapter. i am proud of you and excited about your new dream.

we will share the details of our transition plan in due course, but at this moment, i want to express our deepest respect and gratitude to mira.”

regarding murati's resignation, many ai experts and analysts also left comments:

gary marcus, ceo and founder of silicon valley robotics startup robust.ai, wrote: "what are you waiting for? murati is gone, schulman is gone, kapathy is gone, sutskevi is gone, lake is gone, brockman is gone, and maybe more are leaving, gpt-5 is not available, sora product has not seen market breakthrough, the company lost $5 billion in operating losses last year, has no clear moat, and companies like meta are giving away similar software for free, and many lawsuits are pending, and people are valuing this company at $150 billion? absolutely crazy. investors should not invest more money for a higher valuation, they should ask what is going on."

veteran apple analyst mark gurman suggested: "apple should recruit her immediately!"

"at this point, the financial media is telling us that a cto is suddenly leaving with no succession plan in the middle of negotiating $150 billion in funding, which is really not a good thing, right?" wrote an independent investigative journalist with the handle nobody special.

the following is the full text of murati's memorandum:

i have something to share with you. after careful consideration, i have made the difficult decision to leave openai.

it has been an incredible honor to be at openai for six and a half years, and i am grateful to altman and greg brockman for their trust in me and their continued support over the years.

although there is never a good time to leave a place full of cherished memories, i am at peace at this moment. our recent launch of speech-to-speech conversion technology and new model openai o1 marks the beginning of a new era of interaction and intelligence - all of these brilliant achievements are due to your outstanding wisdom and unremitting efforts.

we not only build smarter models, but also subvert the underlying logic of how ai systems learn complex problems and reason. we have successfully pushed security research from theoretical discussions to the forefront of practice, creating models that are more powerful, consistent, and controllable than ever before. our work makes cutting-edge ai research accessible, and the technology we develop can be personalized and developed according to each person's unique needs.

all of this is a testament to the extraordinary collaboration of the openai team. i am deeply proud and grateful for your talent, dedication, and commitment to making openai the pinnacle of ai innovation.

i am leaving now because i want to free up space and time to explore new areas of my personal life. my priority now is to ensure a smooth transition and maintain and continue the momentum we have built together.

i am deeply honored to have worked alongside such an extraordinary team, and this experience will be forever engraved in my heart. together, we have crossed the boundaries of scientific knowledge and witnessed the birth of countless possibilities in our relentless pursuit of improving human well-being.

although i may no longer be fighting alongside you, i will still be there for you. i am grateful for the deep friendships that have been made along this journey, for every victory we have won together, and most importantly, for the difficult challenges we have overcome together. (compiled by jinlu)