Greg Brockman, a key Sam Altman ally, returns to OpenAI following an exodus of top executives
Greg Brockman announced in August that he is taking a sabbatical through the end of 2024.
OpenAI’s cofounder Greg Brockman has returned to the startup after taking a three-month sabbatical.
Brockman, who was formerly OpenAI’s president and is a key ally of CEO Sam Altman, previously confirmed that he would take a leave of absence in August “through the end of the year.”
On Tuesday, he sent staffers a memo announcing his return, Bloomberg first reported. He said that he had been working with Altman to develop a new role for him that would allow him to work on significant technical challenges.
“Longest vacation of my life complete. Back to building @OpenAI,” Brockman said in a post on X, confirming his return.
The news comes after an exodus of top executives at the ChatGPT maker this year, including former CTO Mira Murati and cofounder Ilya Sutskever.
Brockman’s return would see him bucking the trend of C-suite heavyweights leaving the company to join rival ventures or launch their own startups.
longest vacation of my life complete. back to building @OpenAI.
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 12, 2024
Ilya Sutskever, who left the startup in June, had a complex relationship with Altman — and was heavily involved in his firing and rehiring in November 2023. After his exit from OpenAI, he founded Safe SuperIntelligence, an AI startup that has already raked in $1 billion in funding from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia.
Murati, who left in September 2024, was in talks to raise funding for her own startup — which is said to be building AI products based on proprietary models, Reuters first reported.
Meanwhile, cofounder and research scientist John Schulman joined rival AI juggernaut Anthropic in August.
As of November 2024, only three out of 11 Open AI cofounders remain at the company.
Brockman is a close ally of Altman. When Altman was temporarily ousted from the company in November 2023, Brockman resigned to protest the decision. He rejoined the company once Altman was re-instated.
In October, OpenAI announced it had hired two C-suite executives in a bid to backfill the exodus: former Uber executive Scott Schools, who will be OpenAI’s first chief compliance officer, and Aaron Chatterji, a former Biden administration official and business professor, to take the mantle of chief economist.
