Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has appointed Bob McGrew and Alec Radford as advisers.

McGrew, the former chief research officer at OpenAI, and Radford, a significant contributor to OpenAI’s research, join the company to enhance its advisory team.

The company updated its website in March to reflect the addition of both former OpenAI researchers.

Thinking Machines Lab aims to build customizable and versatile AI systems but has yet to disclose specific products.

Murati, who joined OpenAI in 2018 and became CTO in 2022, led major projects including ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Codex.

🔗 Source: TechCrunch

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ The “OpenAI mafia” is creating a new competitive landscape in AI

The exodus of talent from OpenAI is creating a powerful network of AI startups that’s reshaping the industry’s competitive dynamics.

Approximately 75 former OpenAI employees have established around 30 new AI startups, collectively raising nearly $8 billion in venture funding 1.

This pattern mirrors the influential “PayPal mafia” phenomenon of the early 2000s, with former employees leveraging their expertise to create competitive ventures across different AI specializations.

Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab is part of this larger trend that includes Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence ($1 billion raised), Andrej Karpathy’s Eureka Labs (AI education), and Anthropic (founded by former OpenAI researchers with $7.25 billion raised) 2.

This talent redistribution is creating a more diverse AI ecosystem while potentially challenging OpenAI’s dominance, as evidenced by the company’s research roles dropping from 23% of job postings in 2021 to just 4.4% in 2024 3.

The migration suggests a fundamental tension between commercial priorities and research culture that’s driving experienced AI professionals to seek new environments where they can pursue their visions.

2️⃣ Unprecedented capital is flowing to AI startups amid shifting investment priorities

Global venture funding for AI companies reached over $100 billion in 2024, nearly doubling from $55.6 billion in 2023 and representing nearly a third of all global venture investments 4.