Mira Murati: Walking Away from an $80 Billion Dollar AI Giant to Pursue Impact

In 2024, Mira Murati made a decision that stunned the tech world. After helping to build OpenAI into one of the most influential companies on the planet, she stepped away from her role as Chief Technology Officer to start over. Her reason was clear. She believed the future of artificial intelligence needed more than profit motives and product launches. It needed ethics, accountability, and public trust.

Her journey to that moment started decades earlier, in a part of the world rarely associated with global technology leadership.

Mira Murati was born in 1988 in Vlorë, a coastal city in Albania. She grew up in a country still feeling the effects of its communist past. Resources were limited, but her curiosity was not. From a young age, she showed an aptitude for mathematics and science. Her parents encouraged her ambition, and she set her sights far beyond her hometown.

At age 16, she earned a scholarship to attend Pearson College UWC in British Columbia, Canada. It was there, among students from dozens of countries, that she first developed a global perspective. She began to think not only about how technology works, but about whom it serves.

She went on to pursue engineering through a dual-degree program between Colby College and Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering. At Dartmouth, she was one of only a few women in her program. That experience, she later said, taught her how to speak up in rooms where her voice wasn’t always expected, and how to lead with both competence and clarity.

After college, Murati began her career at Goldman Sachs, but she quickly realized that finance wasn’t where she belonged. She moved to Zodiac Aerospace to work on airplane systems, then to Tesla, where she joined the engineering team working on the Model X. The car’s design included some of Tesla’s most complicated features, including its falcon-wing doors. For Murati, the project was an exercise in solving problems at scale.

She developed a reputation for precision, calm under pressure, and deep technical fluency. But even with all the complexity of automotive design, she felt a growing pull toward technology that could have an even broader societal impact.

That pull led her to OpenAI.

In 2018, Murati joined OpenAI, then a relatively small nonprofit research lab. The organization had a bold mission: to ensure that artificial intelligence would benefit all of humanity. She came in as Vice President of Applied AI and quickly became an essential part of the leadership team. Within a few years, she was promoted to Chief Technology Officer.

Under her guidance, OpenAI released some of its most significant innovations, including ChatGPT, DALL·E, and Codex. These tools fundamentally changed how the world interacts with AI. Murati oversaw not just their technical development but also the strategy behind their public release and integration into platforms like Microsoft’s Office suite.

She also played a central role in OpenAI’s landmark multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft. The deal gave OpenAI critical funding and distribution, while allowing Microsoft to embed some of the most advanced AI models into its products.

Her leadership style was grounded in clarity, technical rigor, and an insistence on asking difficult questions. As OpenAI’s influence grew, so did the stakes—and the scrutiny.

In November 2023, OpenAI’s board briefly removed CEO Sam Altman. During the upheaval, Murati was appointed interim CEO. She stepped into the role with composure, guiding the company through one of its most public crises. Though Altman returned days later, Murati’s performance was widely praised. She had shown that she could lead not only with engineering skill, but with steadiness and principle.

In the months that followed, however, it became increasingly clear that her vision for OpenAI was diverging from that of its leadership. Murati had long been vocal about the need to align AI with human values and to broaden the conversation beyond engineers and technologists. She believed that the public should have a voice in how powerful systems were developed and deployed.

In 2024, she left OpenAI. Her decision was not a resignation from the AI field, but a return to first principles.

Shortly after her departure, Murati announced the launch of Thinking Machines Lab, a new AI company focused on open science, transparency, and ethical deployment. The company remains relatively quiet by Silicon Valley standards, but it is already drawing interest from top researchers and investors who share Murati’s long-term view of AI’s potential and risks.

Early reports suggest that Thinking Machines Lab is building foundational models with greater emphasis on safety, interpretability, and collaborative oversight. It is not yet clear whether the company will compete directly with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, or Anthropic. What is clear is that Murati is once again building from the ground up—this time on her own terms.

She has said that the future of artificial intelligence should not be shaped by a handful of executives in Silicon Valley. It should be shaped by public values, interdisciplinary voices, and long-term thinking.

1. Technical skill is only the beginning
Mira Murati earned her seat at the table with her engineering expertise. But it was her ability to lead teams, build partnerships, and guide difficult decisions that set her apart.

2. Quiet leadership is powerful
She never chased headlines. Even as she led some of the most talked-about innovations in AI, Murati remained focused on the work—not the attention.

3. Values matter more than valuation
When the mission shifted, she chose to leave. Walking away from an $80 billion company was not an act of rebellion. It was an act of integrity.

4. Diverse voices are essential to the future of tech
Murati has consistently argued that AI must include perspectives beyond engineering. She advocates for philosophers, artists, and social scientists to play a role in shaping what comes next.

5. Leadership means knowing when to let go
True leaders know when to push forward and when to start fresh. Murati left behind one of the most powerful positions in tech to build something more aligned with her principles.

Mira Murati’s story is a rare example of principle over prestige.

She built her career by solving complex problems and asking the kinds of questions most companies try to avoid. When the work no longer matched her values, she chose to walk away and start again—quietly, thoughtfully, and with conviction.

Her legacy at OpenAI is lasting. But her next chapter might be even more influential, not because of the products she’ll build, but because of the way she insists they should be built.

As you chart your own path, ask yourself: Are you building what’s possible—or what’s right?