What We Know About the Ex-OpenAI Executive Mira Murati’s Secretive AI Startup

When it comes to AI’s future, Silicon Valley is buzzing with one name above all others: Mira Murati.

After a high-profile run as OpenAI’s chief technology officer and a brief stint as its interim CEO, Mira Murati is now forging her own path. She’s building something big. And she’s asking for a historic $2 billion to do it.

The 36-year-old Albanian-born engineer launched Thinking Machines Lab quietly in late 2024. But in just a few months, it’s already being framed as Silicon Valley’s next great AI power player. Even with details scarce, investors are scrambling to get a piece of the action.

Sources close to the company say the raise could value Thinking Machines Lab at over $10 billion. If successful, it would be the largest seed funding round in tech history.

A Track Record of Big Leaps

Mira Murati’s resume reads like a blueprint for tech disruption. At Tesla, she worked on the Model X. At LeapMotion, she helped develop gesture-based computing.

In 2018, she joined OpenAI. By 2022, she was the CTO, leading projects like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and the video generator Sora. When OpenAI’s board abruptly removed Sam Altman in November 2023, it was she who stepped into the interim CEO role.

At the time, the board said in a blog post that it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” citing that Altman was “not consistently candid in his communications.”

The dramatic period went smoothly under her guidance until Altman resumed his executive position. Mira Murati supported the move, yet this episode helped reinforce her reputation as a dedicated operator who maintains control of complicated operations.

Her conservative attitude toward the advancement of AI technology distinguished her from most industry operators who tended toward immediate, unregulated developments.

While weighing in on AI-driven job loss last year, Mira Murati sparked controversy when she said some creative jobs might go away, “but maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” Her comments angered many, with one writer telling Business Insider they represented “a declaration of war against creative labor.”

The Vision Behind Thinking Machines Lab

Since she departed from OpenAI, Mira Murati has been seen publicly very infrequently. She avoided attending the typical tech conference events this year. She spends her time conducting private sessions with researchers alongside policymakers, as well as important investors.

Her new startup, Thinking Machines Lab, officially emerged from stealth in February 2025. Beyond a minimal web presence and a few cryptic posts, the company is operating under tight secrecy. 

But she did offer one critical clue.

In a public comment earlier this year, she described the company’s goal as fostering “human and AI collaboration” at a much deeper level. Analysts believe this hints at new types of AI systems, ones designed not just to automate tasks, but to act as true partners to people.

Mira Murati’s team isn’t short on pedigree. She’s recruited an all-star lineup of ex-OpenAI talent, including John Schulman, one of the architects behind ChatGPT. Former Meta and Anthropic employees have also joined, signaling serious ambition and serious money behind it.

Is a $2 Billion Seed Raise Visionary or Just Excessive?

Her $2 billion fundraising target is ambitious even by today’s AI standards. Earlier this year, reports pegged the initial seed target at $1 billion. Doubling the figure within months signals not just confidence, but aggressive growth plans.

That vision includes some big swings. According to sources, Thinking Machines Lab isn’t just focused on software. Hardware research, potentially involving new computing interfaces, is rumored to be in early development.

Despite the buzz, Mira Murati is choosing her backers carefully. Thinking Machines Lab isn’t looking to take “just any money,” sources say, but is aligning with investors who understand the long-term stakes.

Building Toward the Heart of AGI

If the past is any indicator, Mira Murati’s instincts are worth betting on. Before OpenAI, she cut her teeth at Tesla, helping develop the Model X SUV. She later moved to LeapMotion (now Ultraleap), working on technologies to replace keyboards with hand gestures.

Each step brought her closer to her one ultimate goal: shaping artificial general intelligence (AGI). “I believed AGI would be the last, most important major technology we built,” she told WIRED in an interview two years ago. “And I wanted to be at the heart of it.”

Thinking Machines Lab seems to be her attempt to build that future on her own terms.For now, the startup remains a mystery to most, and much about its research directions and early products is unknown. But one thing is clear: if Mira Murati’s track record holds, the next breakthrough in AI might just come from behind Thinking Machines Lab’s closed doors.