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After Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s head of safety says he is leaving: List of high-profile departures from ChatGPT-maker
TOI Tech Desk / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Jul 12, 2026, 19:43 IST
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OpenAI (logo)
The executive suite at OpenAI is experiencing another major setback. According to a report by Wired, Johannes Heidecke, the artificial intelligence (AI) company’s head of safety systems, has told staff that he is leaving the company. His exit comes immediately after an internal reorganisation designed to merge OpenAI’s safety and research divisions, the report said. The shakeup highlights the mounting operational pressure inside the company as it races to build and deploy advanced AI models at a breakneck pace and looking for successful initial public offering (IPO).In an internal memo, OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, Mark Chen, explained that the company’s safety teams will now be consolidated under Mia Glaese, the head of alignment, who will step into an expanded role as VP of Research and Safety. Saachi Jain will take over as the interim head of safety systems.“The demands on safety continue to increase—we are training models at a much faster cadence, and release cycles have come down greatly in turn. As a result, we have bigger coordination challenges around safety today than ever before,” Chen said in the memo, as per Wired.Heidecke’s exit marks the end of a five-year stint that began in 2021. He stepped into the role of safety chief in 2024 after his predecessor, Lilian Weng, walked out the door to co-found a rival startup called Thinking Machines Lab.
High-profile exits from OpenAI
Just days before Heidecke’s announcement, OpenAI’s Chief Futurist, Joshua Achiam, also revealed he was leaving the company after nine years of safety research, the report said. Furthermore, Fidji Simo, the CEO of AGI Deployment, announced she is stepping down following an extended medical leave. Co-founder Greg Brockman will absorb her responsibilities, taking control of both product teams and OpenAI’s global go-to-market strategy.
A growing list of executive departures
The safety division isn’t the only part of OpenAI seeing a mass exodus. In April, a wave of high-profile leaders across video, science, and marketing have also called it quits as the company reportedly reels in costs ahead of a highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO), as per CNBC.Bill Peebles, who was the mastermind behind Sora, OpenAI’s short-form video application that initially took Apple’s App Store by storm, exited after OpenAI abruptly shuttered the Sora app to conserve expensive computing resources.Kevin Weil served as the Vice President of OpenAI for Science, and was former Chief Product Officer. Weil left as OpenAI made the decision to dismantle and “decentralise” its dedicated science division.Srinivas Narayanan, Chief Technology Officer of B2B Applications announced his departure on X (formerly Twitter).Kate Rouch: OpenAI’s Chief Marketing Officer, who stepped down in April to focus on her recovery from cancer.
OpenAI gains top AI talent
While a bunch of tech executives left OpenAI, the ChatGPT-maker also gained a few of them. For example, Google’s top AI researcher Noam Shazeer – a co-lead of Google’s Gemini AI – joined OpenAI in June. Peter Steinberger, the Austrian programmer, who created OpenClaw, also joined OpenAI to build the next generation of AI personal agents.Get the latest technology news and updates. Download the TOI App.
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