Srinivas Narayanan to leave OpenAI after three years

In posts on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn, Srinivas Narayanan said he decided to leave after recent and upcoming product launches, calling it “the right time to step back.” He led OpenAI’s B2B engineering team and earlier headed the Applied Engineering group.

During his time at the company, OpenAI launched popular products like ChatGPT and its API platform, which he described as some of the fastest-growing products ever, built without a clear roadmap.

Srinivas Narayanan said he plans to spend time in India with his aging parents before deciding his next steps. His exit comes as OpenAI continues to grow its enterprise and developer offerings worldwide.

In 2008, Srinivas Narayanan joined Facebook (now Meta) as Vice President of Engineering, where he worked for over 10 years, leading large engineering projects. After that he briefly worked with General Catalyst on AI projects before joining OpenAI in April 2023. At OpenAI, he led important areas like ChatGPT the developer API platform and related systems.

Earlier the same day, Bill Peebles and Kevin Weil also announced their departures in separate posts on X (formerly Twitter). Narayanan said leading the B2B engineering team was a privilege and that it felt like the right time to step back after recent product launches.

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"Srinivas Narayanan said in his post that the team built some of the fastest-growing products, like ChatGPT and the API, without a clear plan, and that this was possible because of the team's hard work and dedication. He said he is proud of what they achieved together and thanked everyone for their support, He also thanked Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Fidji Simo, and OpenAI's leadership for the opportunity. He said he will always value this experience and now plans to spend time with his parents in India before deciding his next step."

"Srinivas Narayanan studied Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras from 1991 to 1995 and later completed a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin Madison. He started his career as a software engineer at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in 1997. He later worked as Director of Technology at Tavant Technologies, and co founded Viralizr in 2007, where he served as CTO and built consumer products focused on social collaboration."

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