OpenAI Is Growing Fast and Losing Executives Even Faster. Here's Why.

Key points

• More than a dozen OpenAI executives have left since the start of 2025, including the chief operating officer, chief revenue officer and chief marketing officer.
• Chris Malone, OpenAI's head of data centers, left last week after joining in March 2024, with the company citing an internal reorganisation.
• OpenAI filed confidential paperwork with the SEC to go public in June 2025, but the IPO is not now expected until 2027.
• Greg Brockman, OpenAI's co-founder and president, is gaining influence: both the infrastructure and product teams now report to him.
• OpenAI's user base for its desktop app grew by roughly 15 million subscribers in two months, yet the company's losses are reportedly rising alongside its revenue.

OpenAI built the chatbot that put artificial intelligence on the front page. Its latest model, GPT-5.6, is one of the most capable on the market. Its desktop app just added about 15 million new subscribers in two months. So why does it keep losing the people at the top?

Since January, more than a dozen senior leaders have walked out the door. The departures include the chief operating officer, the chief revenue officer and the chief marketing officer. Last week, as first reported by TechCrunch AI, Chris Malone, the executive who oversaw OpenAI's data centres, the physical buildings packed with computers that run the company's AI systems, left after just over a year in the role. OpenAI said the exit was the result of a restructuring of its infrastructure team.

Why does this keep happening?

Several forces are at work, and none of them alone tells the whole story.

Some departures are health-related. Others followed CEO Sam Altman's decision to cut what insiders call expensive side projects and refocus the company on work that brings in money. But the clearest pattern is a shift in who actually runs things day to day.

Greg Brockman, OpenAI's co-founder and president, has been reclaiming authority. He helped build the company's early technical foundations but lost most management responsibilities in 2019 when Altman became CEO. He took a sabbatical in 2024. Now he is back, and both the product and infrastructure teams report to him. "I like to say that everyone reports to Greg at the end of the day," Thibault Sottiaux, who leads OpenAI's API and app work, told reporters last week.

Brockman's growing role may explain Malone's exit neatly. When a new leader takes over a division, senior managers who once sat near the top often find themselves several rungs further down. Many simply leave.

What does the IPO have to do with it?

Everything. OpenAI filed confidential paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to list its shares publicly in June 2025. Going public would unlock enormous amounts of new money for a company that burns through cash at a striking rate.

The trouble is that rival Anthropic, the AI company backed by Google and Amazon, is reportedly already profitable. OpenAI is reportedly not. Its losses are growing even as its revenue rises.

The two companies may end up disclosing their finances at roughly the same time. That is uncomfortable when one is in the red.

OpenAI's public listing was originally expected sooner. The average company that files confidentially tends to reach the stock market within about five months. OpenAI is now targeting 2027. Reading between the lines, the company appears to be spending the extra time cutting costs, boosting revenue and building a leadership structure that investors will trust.

Brockman, who helped build Stripe's business operations before co-founding OpenAI, fits that brief. He is an engineer who also understands how to sell.

What should ordinary users make of this?

For now, nothing changes about the product you use. GPT-5.6 is still available. The desktop app is still growing. Internal reshuffles at the executive level rarely affect day-to-day performance.

If you pay for OpenAI's services through a business subscription, it is worth noting that pricing and product priorities could shift as the company focuses harder on profit ahead of its IPO.

One honest thing to keep in mind: the executives now departing were brought in to scale a fast-growing startup. Brockman's rising influence suggests OpenAI is entering a different chapter, one where financial discipline matters as much as technical ambition. That is normal for any company heading toward a stock market debut. It does not mean the product is broken. It means the business is being remade to survive as a public company.