OpenAI experiences a triple departure in one day, losing its product chief, the head of Sora, and the enterprise CTO.

      Summary: Three high-ranking executives from OpenAI, including former Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil, Sora head Bill Peebles, and enterprise CTO Srinivas Narayanan, all left the company on the same day as it discontinues “side quests” like Sora (which will cease operations on April 26) and dismantles OpenAI for Science. Their departures are part of a two-year trend that has seen only two of the original eleven co-founders remain, with many former employees moving to competitors such as Anthropic, Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, and various startups, as OpenAI shifts focus toward enterprise AI despite projected losses of $14 billion against an annual revenue of $25 billion.

      This week, three senior executives departed OpenAI simultaneously, marking a continuation of a trend of leadership turnover that has largely depleted the company's initial leadership team. Kevin Weil, the previous chief product officer who led OpenAI for Science, Bill Peebles, who directed Sora, and Srinivas Narayanan, the enterprise applications CTO, all announced their exits on Friday. Their resignations coincide with the company's decision to terminate what it refers to as “side quests,” which are consumer-focused exploratory projects that no longer align with OpenAI’s strong pivot toward enterprise AI.

      Weil, who joined OpenAI from Instagram around two years ago, described his time as “a mind-expanding two years.” He transitioned from the CPO role to lead the OpenAI for Science initiative, which launched the GPT-Rosalind model just one day before his exit. That team will be integrated into other research groups. Peebles, who created Sora from the ground up, called the experience “the honour and adventure of a lifetime,” noting that it helped spur significant investment in AI video across the industry. Narayanan, who contributed to the development of ChatGPT and the API while expanding the applied engineering team, stated his departure is to spend more time with his family.

      The end of side quests

      These resignations are closely tied to strategic decisions made prior. Sora, OpenAI’s AI video generation platform, is being shut down, with the web and app versions ending on April 26 and the API on September 24. The product had around one million users at its peak but dropped to fewer than 500,000, and it incurred roughly $1 million daily in operational costs. The Motion Picture Association reported issues of intellectual property infringement on the platform. While Sora's commercial performance was disappointing, Peebles was correct about its role in driving industry investment in AI video; the shutdown represents a recognition that OpenAI could not sustain the project's economics, though the technology itself was significant.

      OpenAI for Science is being “decentralized,” a corporate term indicating its dissolution. Although the team's efforts will continue within other research divisions, the initiative that Weil was brought in to manage will no longer exist as an independent entity. This move aligns with OpenAI's strategy of focusing on its primary revenue-generating products, ChatGPT and the API, while discontinuing projects that do not directly enhance the enterprise business.

      The broader exodus

      The exits on Friday add to a list of senior departures that have reshaped OpenAI's leadership over the last two years. Of the company’s eleven co-founders, only two remain: Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. The departed leadership includes co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, CTO Mira Murati, chief research officer Bob McGrew, VP of research Barret Zoph, co-founder John Schulman, chief communications officer Hannah Wong, chief people officer Julia Villagra, and board member Lawrence Summers. In 2025 alone, at least 12 senior executives have left.

      The destinations of these executives tell a significant story. Schulman has joined Anthropic, while Tim Brooks, who co-led Sora with Peebles, is now at Google DeepMind and then Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. Shengjia Zhao, a primary architect behind ChatGPT and GPT-4, is now chief scientist at Meta Superintelligence Labs, with around seven other researchers following a similar path to Meta. Liam Fedus, VP of research, has left to co-found Periodic Labs. This talent drain is not indicative of retirement; rather, it is a distribution of skills to competitors who are often pursuing the same products.

      The reasons behind these departures vary. Some executives departed due to ethical issues related to a Defense Department AI contract, while others expressed concerns over a cultural shift from ambitious research initiatives to the operational demands of enhancing ChatGPT's speed and reliability for Microsoft and enterprise customers. Sources have noted that Anthropic's Claude, particularly Claude Code, is gaining traction in developer adoption, increasing competitive pressure on OpenAI and shifting its focus toward immediate product execution at the expense of long-term research efforts.

      The leadership vacuum

      The timing further complicates the situation. Fidji Simo, the chief of product and business who was one