Brockman Claims OpenAI's Helm

While Sam Altman retains his title as CEO, the day-to-day operational leadership at OpenAI has increasingly shifted to his second-in-command.

OpenAI has navigated a tumultuous year marked by significant challenges. The company endured months of intense legal disputes with former co-founder Elon Musk in a high-profile jury trial, faced a notable trade secrets lawsuit initiated by Apple, and drew extensive criticism following an incident where an unreleased model reportedly compromised another AI firm. Amidst its preparations for an initial public offering (IPO), there has been a consistent exodus of executives, including some of its most prominent figures.

Throughout this period, one individual has steadily consolidated influence: Greg Brockman.

Brockman currently serves as OpenAI’s president and co-founder, a role he has held since the company’s inception. He is often described as an “engineering workhorse that pushed to build scaled-up systems that would train the AI and make it work” during OpenAI's formative years. His ambition was evident early on, famously journaling in 2017, “Financially what will take me to $1B?” (His current stake in OpenAI is now valued at nearly 30 times that amount.) However, in those early days, his authority was shared among several co-founders, including chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and CEO Sam Altman.

Today, despite Brockman’s official title remaining unchanged for years, his scope of responsibility and job description have expanded dramatically. He has effectively emerged as the company’s second-in-command, and in terms of daily operations, he is the principal leader.

High-level personnel departures have been occurring throughout the year at OpenAI, with a significant surge in April. That month saw the exits of Bill Peebles, former head of Sora; Kevin Weil, VP of OpenAI’s science division; and Srinivas Narayanan, CTO of B2B applications. Additionally, CMO Kate Rouch and Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI deployment, both departed citing medical reasons; Simo went on leave in April before officially resigning in July. The executive reshuffling has persisted, with CRO Denise Dresser, who had assumed numerous additional responsibilities after the April changes, abruptly announcing her departure earlier this month after just eight months. Days later, Brad Lightcap, who had recently overseen “special projects” but previously served as OpenAI’s longtime COO, revealed his plans to leave and pursue “something new.”

While some of these departures, such as those of Rouch, Peebles, and Weil, did not appear to directly impact Brockman’s standing, others significantly broadened his authority. When Simo commenced medical leave, Brockman assumed control over all product-related initiatives, including leading OpenAI’s ambitious super app development efforts.

This expanded role gained even greater prominence the following month, after OpenAI implemented another executive reorganization specifically aimed at boosting revenue. This strategic shift placed Brockman in charge not only of product strategy but also the company’s entire “scaling” arm, granting him oversight of virtually every aspect of its commercial operations. Simo’s official resignation, occurring just weeks after OpenAI formally filed for its IPO, solidified this new organizational structure. Notably, upon Dresser’s departure last week, a quote from Brockman—rather than CEO Sam Altman—was featured in the press release concerning the changes; he affirmed the company’s commitment to “build out the full system to make AI broadly useful for people and businesses.”

To external observers, these organizational shifts signal OpenAI’s heightened focus on revenue generation as its IPO approaches, alongside a strategic drive to develop products that will differentiate it from competitor Anthropic. Harrison Rolfes, a senior research analyst at PitchBook, informed The Verge that major alterations in executives’ scope of work typically serve as a “signal towards where the company is headed strategically.” He added, “When you have someone like Greg Brockman, for example, he’s more of a product scale and commercial sort of guy. He has a deep technical knowledge that essentially will collapse certain decisionmaking layers.”

Rolfes also suggested that this concentration of power could naturally lead to departures among lower-level employees: “Whatever he says goes [now] … If, let’s say, you’re below Brockman and you don’t agree with his approach but you’re a lead researcher, whatever it may be, you’re not going to work there anymore — you’re going to say, ‘I’m going to leave.’”

Brockman’s authority is now surpassed only by Sam Altman, who himself undertook a deliberate consolidation of power following his clash with OpenAI’s board in 2023. The two did not always see eye-to-eye in OpenAI’s early days; Brockman sometimes aligned with Sutskever on challenging decisions regarding power dynamics, even questioning some of Altman’s ambitions, though he also expressed concern about Elon Musk “steamrolling” Altman. Nevertheless, he has consistently maintained a close personal and professional relationship with Altman. When Altman was ousted from his CEO position in November 2023, Brockman immediately resigned in solidarity and began formulating plans for a new AI venture alongside him. Since that time, their alignment appears to have only strengthened.

Any centralization of power offers practical advantages for OpenAI, enabling it to reduce some of its most substantial salary payouts to bolster its balance sheet, according to Ross Carmel, a partner at Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel (SRFC). Carmel explained, “When you’re going into an IPO, particularly for a company like OpenAI, who is lagging behind Anthropic in terms of revenue, you want to decrease those expenses so that this way, you’re either more profitable or closer to profitable.” However, he also noted, “While it’s not unusual to see high-level execs leave a company just prior to a public listing, I think the fact they’re all in this small time period — that part is unusual.”

Despite experts telling The Verge that the executive departures were unusually intense and could raise red flags, Brockman stated on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday that there were no underlying issues. He commented, “There have been different eras where we have different sets of leaders in place … I’m a constant, Sam [Altman] is a constant, and that, I think that we are stronger because of that resilience and diversity.”

Brockman’s consistent focus has been on translating OpenAI’s groundbreaking research into tangible products. In 2020, he celebrated OpenAI’s GPT-3 and its developer API as “the first time that [OpenAI has] had a general-purpose AI system that’s immediately commercially valuable—it’s actually useful.” More than five years later, these products are now expected to become profitable.

SRFC’s Carmel suggested that OpenAI likely anticipates Brockman will drive consumer revenue, rather than merely attempting to catch up with Anthropic in the enterprise sector. He elaborated, “In order for OpenAI to be successful and really differentiate themselves from Anthropic, they need hardware and consumer products to sell to consumers, and that’s what Greg does well.” Rolfes further predicted that OpenAI would launch some form of consumer product under Brockman’s guidance by the end of September, a move designed for him to “show that he deserves that position.”

“That’s the biggest worry that a lot of public investors have now,” Rolfes articulated. “They’re going to say, ‘Hey, does Greg have what it takes to run more of OpenAI, and is OpenAI building this institution that can operate without really depending heavily on him — on both Greg and Sam?’”