OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is departing the artificial intelligence (AI) giant, and will be replaced by research director Jakub Pachocki.Mr Sutskever, part of the founding team at the company, was also a key player in the brief but dramatic ouster of OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman in November."After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI," Mr Sutskever wrote. "The companys trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous."Upon OpenAIs founding in 2015, Mr Sutskever served as its research director; he was recruited to join the company by Elon Musk. Later, he was one of several board members who moved to fire Mr Altman. But soon

OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is departing the artificial intelligence (AI) giant, and will be replaced by research director Jakub Pachocki. Mr Sutskever, part of the founding team at the company, was also a key player in the brief but dramatic ouster of OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman in November. "After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI," Mr Sutskever wrote. "The companys trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous." Upon OpenAIs founding in 2015, Mr Sutskever served as its research director; he was recruited to join the company by Elon Musk. Later, he was one of several board members who moved to fire Mr Altman. But soon after, Mr Sutskever said he regretted the decision. After Mr Altman returned to the company in late November, Mr Sutskever said in a blog post that he would not go back to his former post as a board member, but that the company was "discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI." Mr Sutskever is well known in the field of AI, dating back to his research on neural networks at the University of Toronto, and continuing at Google, where he worked at the companys Google Brain lab. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, did not immediately return a request for comment. In a post on X, Mr Altman wrote, "Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend." On X,Mr Sutskever posted that he is working on an as-yet-unnamed project that is "very personally meaningful" for him. The companys new chief scientist, Mr Pachocki has worked at OpenAI since 2017. He had been the start-ups research director. BLOOMBERG

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OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is leaving the company

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OpenAI Co-Founder Ilya Sutskever Exits, Jakub Pachocki Steps In

OpenAI said on Monday it had hired Sarah Friar, the former CEO of social media firm Nextdoor, as its first chief financial officer. The artificial intelligence firm has also appointed Kevin Weil, who has previously worked at Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as chief product officer. Friar earlier served as CFO at Square and is also a member of Walmarts board. She has also previously worked at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Salesforce. "Sarah and Kevin bring a depth of experience that will enable OpenAI to scale our operations, set a strategy for the next phase of growth, and ensure that our teams have the resources they need to continue to thrive," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement on Monday. The new appointments follow the departure of OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever in May, who was replaced by Jakub Pachocki. Pachocki has previously served as OpenAIs director of research and led the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five. Sutskever played a key role in Altmans dramatic firing and rehiring in November last year. At the time, Sutskever was on the board of OpenAI and helped to orchestrate Altmans firing. Days later, he reversed course, signing onto an employee letter demanding Altmans return and expressing regret for his "participation in the boards actions." After Altman returned, Sutskever was removed from the board and his position at the company became unclear. Andrej Karpathy, an artificial intelligence researcher and one of the founding members of OpenAI, left the company in February. OpenAI in March said it was appointing new directors including Altman, Sue Desmond-Hellmann, a former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nicole Seligman, a former president of Sony Entertainment, and Fidji Simo, CEO of Instacart.

OpenAI Hires Ex-Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar as CFO, Kevin Weil as CPO

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Sarah is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Nextdoor, a position she has held since December 2018. She also serves as a Member of the Board of Advisors at Operation HOPE and a Member of the Board of Directors at ConsenSys. Additionally, she is a Co-launcher at Ladies Who Launch and a Member of the Board of Directors at Walmart, a role she began in March 2018.

Prior to her current roles, Sarah was a Member of the Board of Directors at Slack from March 2017 to July 2021. Before that, she served as the CFO at Square from July 2012 to December 2018 and as a Member of the Board of Directors at New Relic, Inc. from June 2014 to April 2018. Her previous experience includes being a Senior Vice President, Finance & Strategy at Salesforce.com from April 2011 to July 2012 and a Managing Director in Business Unit Leader for Technology at Goldman Sachs from 2000 to April 2011.

Sarahs early career includes roles as a Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company from 1996 to 1998 and as a Scholar at Arthur Andersen from 1991 to 1992.

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Kevin is currently the Chief Product Officer at OpenAI, having joined the firm in June 2024. Previously, he was the President of Product & Business at Planet from April 2021 to [date]. He also served as a Board Member at Planet Federal. Kevin holds board positions at The Nature Conservancy and Black Product Managers Network. Additionally, he is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

His prior experience includes roles such as VP of Product at Novi and co-creator of Diem (fka Libra) at Facebook from June 2018 to April 2021. Before that, he was a VP of Product at Instagram from March 2016 to June 2018. Kevin spent nearly 7 years as a SVP Product at Twitter from May 2009 to February 2016. Earlier in his career, he was an Engineering Lead, Analytics at Cooliris and a Scientist/Engineer at Tropos Networks.

Kevins early career includes a role as a Physicist at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and positions at Microsoft Research as a Software Engineer Intern.

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Jakub is currently the Director of Research at OpenAI, a position he has held since October 2023. Prior to this role, he served as Principal of Research and held various Research Lead positions within the organization. Before joining OpenAI, Jakub was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University from July 2016 to January 2017. He began his career as a Software Engineering Intern at Facebook in July 2011 and continued in this role in July 2012.

Departure

Ilya is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at OpenAI since November 2018. Prior to this role, he was a Co-Founder and Research Director at OpenAI starting in January 2016. Before joining OpenAI, he worked as a Research Scientist at Google from March 2013 to December 2015. He also co-founded DNNResearch from December 2012 to March 2013 and served as a Postdoc at Stanford University from November 2012 to December 2012. Ilya holds a PhD in Computer Science and a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from the University of Toronto.

OpenAI Co-Founder Ilya Sutskever Exits, Jakub Pachocki Steps In

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