OpenAI sees another wave of executive departures ahead of IPO

OpenAI is facing a fresh wave of senior executive departures as it prepares for an initial public offering.

Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's former chief operating officer, announced Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, that he is leaving the company to start a new venture.

"It's bittersweet to share that I'm leaving OpenAI to start something new," Lightcap wrote.

He said he had spent recent months examining OpenAI's mission to develop artificial general intelligence for all of humanity and the obstacles standing in the way. "I think there are a few important problems the world needs to get right," he added, signaling that his next venture may be AGI-related.

Lightcap joined OpenAI in 2018 after working alongside CEO Sam Altman at venture firm Y Combinator.

During his tenure, he built out most of the company's operational and business functions, including finance, legal, human resources, corporate security, go-to-market strategy and partnerships.

He stepped down as COO in April, moving to a special projects role in which he launched the OpenAI Deployment Company, a consulting joint venture that embeds engineers directly with enterprise clients to build AI systems.

Lightcap's announcement came one day after news broke that Chloe Bakalar, OpenAI's dedicated ethics officer, had also left the company.

Before that, Fidji Simo, who served as CEO of OpenAI's business division, stepped down last month to seek treatment for a medical condition, while safety systems chief Johannes Heidecke and futurist Joshua Achiam also departed.

In April, executives leading the Sora video-generation model team also left, along with Srinivas Narayanan, who oversaw technology for the B2B applications division, and Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch.

Because Lightcap had already transitioned away from the COO role and was handling only a separate project, his departure is expected to have a relatively limited direct impact on the company's operations.

Still, the steady stream of resignations — including the exit of a veteran who helped lay the company's foundations from its earliest days — comes at a sensitive moment as OpenAI moves toward a public listing, and could unsettle employees and outside observers alike.