Mira Murati

Overview

Mira Murati is an Albanian-American engineer and technology executive, born on 16 December 1988 in Vlorë, Albania^[1]. She is known for her years in senior roles at OpenAI, including a short period as the company's interim chief executive, and for founding the start-up Thinking Machines Lab, where she is CEO^[1][2].

Education

Murati holds a BA from Colby College, completed in 2011, and a BE in mechanical engineering from Dartmouth College, completed in 2012^[1]. Her formal training is therefore in the liberal arts and in mechanical engineering rather than in computer science; she moved into software and AI products through product work. In June 2024 Dartmouth awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science^[1].

Early career in product roles

Before working in AI, Murati spent most of her early career as a product manager — the person who coordinates what a technical team builds, for whom, and on what schedule. From 2013 to 2016 she was a product manager on the Tesla Model X^[1], an electric vehicle programme at Tesla. From 2016 to 2018 she worked at Leap Motion, an augmented-reality start-up^[1]. These roles gave her experience in hardware-adjacent, fast-moving product organisations before she moved into research-driven AI work.

At OpenAI

Murati joined OpenAI in 2018 as vice president of applied AI and partnerships^[1]. In that role she sat between the company's technical work and the outside organisations that used or partnered on it. In May 2022 she became chief technology officer^[1], a position that put her in charge of the technical organisation at a company that was, in that period, rapidly expanding both its research and its products.

Three days as interim CEO

In November 2023, Sam Altman was briefly removed from his position at OpenAI. During that episode Murati served as interim CEO for three days, after which she returned to the CTO role^[1]. The arrangement was short-lived, but it made her, for a few days, the most visible person at one of the most closely watched AI companies in the world — an unusual position for an executive whose public profile had until then been mostly technical and operational.

Leaving OpenAI

Murati announced on X on 25 September 2024 that she was leaving OpenAI^[3], and she stepped down as chief technology officer in September 2024^[1]. Her departure came at a time when several senior figures at the company had left, and it was widely reported as a significant change to its leadership.

Thinking Machines Lab

After leaving OpenAI, Murati founded Thinking Machines Lab, which launched in February 2025; she is its CEO^[1][2]. The move took her from running the technical side of an established lab to building a new organisation from the beginning — a different job, involving hiring, funding, setting a research direction and deciding what the company would actually ship.

What her career illustrates

Murati's path is a useful example of how AI leadership has been staffed. She did not come up through a conventional academic research route: her degrees are in the liberal arts and mechanical engineering^[1], and her formative professional years were spent as a product manager on a car programme and at an augmented-reality start-up^[1]. Only later did she move into applied AI, partnerships and then the CTO role at OpenAI^[1].

Her three days as interim CEO in November 2023^[1] also became one of the most-discussed episodes in the short institutional history of the AI industry, and it is the moment many people outside the field first learned her name. Since February 2025 she has been building her own organisation rather than running a technical division inside someone else's^[1][2].