OpenAI has seen several high-profile departures in recent weeks, and former COO Brad Lightcap has now joined the list. One of the company’s longest-serving executives and a close associate of CEO Sam Altman, Lightcap is leaving OpenAI to launch a new venture of his own.
Lightcap announced his departure on X by sharing a memo he had sent to OpenAI employees. Describing the decision as “bittersweet”, he said he felt “incredibly fortunate” to have spent much of the last decade helping build the company.
“It has been the honor of my life to help bring us to this point, and to do it alongside all of you,” he wrote.
Lightcap joined OpenAI in 2018 and played a major role in expanding the company through enterprise partnerships and business deals that generated billions of dollars in revenue.
“We grew from a small research lab to one of the most consequential companies of our time,” he said.
The former COO also revealed that he was preparing to “start something new”, though he did not disclose details about his plans. He concluded his message by referencing an old OpenAI joke that “the real AGI is the friends you made along the way”, saying the sentiment strongly resonated with him.
SAM ALTMAN REACTS TO BRAD LIGHTCAP'S EXIT
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Lightcap’s announcement and thanked him for his contributions to the company.
Altman recalled their early conversations about OpenAI, writing that he “very fondly” remembered a time when the company sounded “totally crazy” and Lightcap was among the few people who understood its potential.
He said Lightcap had taken on “any function and challenge OpenAI has needed” and credited him as someone without whom the company would not have reached its current position.
Lightcap and Altman have known each other for years, with their professional relationship dating back to startup accelerator Y Combinator, which Altman previously led. Lightcap has also worked at Dropbox and JPMorgan in the past.
He joined OpenAI in 2018 after expressing an interest in working on “something hard”. At the company, Altman introduced him to Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, who presented him with a pitch arguing that AI models improve predictably as they scale, making artificial general intelligence not only possible but likely.
Lightcap initially spent four years as OpenAI’s chief financial officer before becoming chief operating officer. In April, he moved into a role focused on special projects, while Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser assumed most of his previous COO responsibilities.
During his tenure, Lightcap helped transform OpenAI into a major provider of AI technology for businesses. While the company had no significant enterprise product in 2018, it has since secured major agreements with companies worldwide, generating billions of dollars in revenue.
“I had the privilege of building the first versions of most of our operations and business teams – from Finance to Legal, People, CorpSec, GTM/Gov, Partnerships, and more,” he said.
OPENAI SEES ANOTHER EXIT AHEAD OF IPO
OpenAI is reportedly expected to go public before the end of this year. The company is currently valued at around $852 billion and could potentially surpass a trillion-dollar valuation following an IPO.
However, the company has experienced several prominent departures ahead of the anticipated listing.
Lightcap’s exit comes after researcher Naomi Bashkansky and AI ethics lead Chloe Bakalar recently left OpenAI. Earlier this year, Fidji Simo, the company’s CEO of Applications, shifted into an advisory position, while head of safety Johannes Heidecke departed in July.
Bill Peebles, who previously led the Sora AI video-generation project, has also left the company.
