Brad Lightcap is departing from OpenAI after eight years to embark on a new venture.

      Brad Lightcap, who spent eight years at OpenAI with four of those years as chief operating officer, announced on Tuesday that he is departing to pursue a new venture, the details of which he did not disclose.

      “It is bittersweet to share that I’ll be moving on from OpenAI to start something new,” Lightcap said in a post on X, mirroring an internal memo sent the same day.

      “I believe there are several critical new areas that the world needs to get right as we move into this next phase. I’ll have more to share soon, but I am more committed to OpenAI than ever and look forward to supporting you all in advancing the mission from a different perspective.”

      Lightcap joined OpenAI in 2018 from Y Combinator, where he worked alongside Sam Altman, and became COO in 2022. In April of this year, he transitioned away from that role during a reshuffling that shifted most of his commercial responsibilities to chief revenue officer Denise Dresser, while he took on a portfolio of special projects involving complex deals and investments, reporting to Altman.

      During his time, he contributed significantly to what he termed the less glamorous side of OpenAI. “I had the privilege of creating the initial versions of most of our operations and business teams,” he stated, “including Finance, Legal, People, CorpSec, GTM/Gov, Partnerships, and more.”

      His influence extended to the Deployment Company, an enterprise venture backed by over $4 billion from a syndicate of nineteen firms led by TPG, as well as the integration of Jony Ive’s hardware startup io, whose team he welcomed publicly last year.

      The timing of his departure is noteworthy. Lightcap announced this just a day after OpenAI completed a $7 billion employee tender offer that valued the company at $852 billion, reportedly only two months after filing confidentially for an initial public offering.

      Typically, executives do not leave a pre-IPO cap table without a compelling reason, and Lightcap has only provided one: “Sitting here today, mission success feels within sight.”

      He is also the ninth high-ranking individual to depart since spring. Along with him, chief product officer Kevin Weil, Sora architect Bill Peebles, and enterprise CTO Srinivas Narayanan all left on the same day in April.

      Chief marketing officer Kate Rouch stepped back that month, while Barret Zoph exited in June, five months after his return. Fidji Simo, chief executive of applications and essentially the company’s second-in-command, transitioned to a part-time advisory role in July.

      The heads of safety systems Johannes Heidecke, AI ethics Chloé Bakalar, and chief futurist Joshua Achiam all departed in the same month. Bakalar was OpenAI's sole dedicated ethicist and has not been replaced.

      Though some of these departures have benign explanations, including two related to health issues disclosed by the company at the time, collectively they represent a nearly complete turnover of the leadership team in about four months, during which the company's valuation has quadrupled.

      Altman has not publicly commented on the departure, which is unusual for a CEO known for his warm farewells to departing team members.

      Lightcap concluded his message with a familiar internal joke: “The old OpenAI meme that ‘the real AGI is the friends you made’ really rings true.” He will be leaving in a few weeks and promises to share details about his next endeavor soon.