OpenAI Is Growing Fast and Losing Executives Even Faster. Here's Why.
More than a dozen senior leaders have left OpenAI since January. The company's co-founder is quietly picking up the pieces, and a closely-watched stock market debut hangs over everything.
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 isn't now expected until 2027.
- Greg Brockman, OpenAI's co-founder, has been reclaiming authority: both the infrastructure and product teams now report to him.
- OpenAI's 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 among the most capable on the market, and the desktop app just added about 15 million new subscribers in two months. The departures keep coming anyway.
Since January, more than a dozen senior leaders have walked out. Last week, as first reported by TechCrunch AI, Chris Malone, the executive who oversaw OpenAI's data centers (the physical buildings packed with computers that run its AI systems), left after just over a year in the role. OpenAI said the exit followed a restructuring of its infrastructure team.
Why does this keep happening?
Several forces are at work, and none 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. The clearest pattern, though, 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 when Altman became CEO in 2019. After a sabbatical in 2024, he's back with considerably more pull: both the product and infrastructure teams now report directly to him. "I like to say that everyone reports to Greg," Thibault Sottiaux, who leads OpenAI's API and app work, told TechCrunch last week.
We've been tracking this shift since July. Our 20 August story "Greg Brockman is quietly becoming the most powerful person at OpenAI" found him accumulating control over products, strategy and commercial operations well before Malone's exit made headlines.
Brockman's growing role may explain that 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?
Quite a lot. OpenAI filed confidential paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to list its shares publicly in June 2025. Tapping public markets would bring in substantial new capital 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 reportedly isn't. Its losses are growing even as its revenue rises.
| Company | IPO status | Reported profit? | Expected timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | Confidential filing, June 2025 | No (losses rising) | 2027 |
| Anthropic | Planning public debut | Yes (reportedly) | Not confirmed |
The two companies may end up disclosing their finances at roughly the same time. That's uncomfortable when one is in the red.
OpenAI's 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, which suggests the extra time is being spent cutting costs, lifting revenue and assembling a leadership structure that investors will trust.
Brockman, who built out Stripe's business operations before co-founding OpenAI, fits that brief. He's 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 and 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, pricing and product priorities could shift as the company focuses harder on profit ahead of its IPO.
Here's the honest read on this beat: the executives departing now were hired to scale a fast-growing startup. Brockman's rising influence signals that OpenAI is entering a different chapter, one where financial discipline matters as much as technical ambition. That's normal for any company heading toward a public listing. It doesn't mean the product is broken. It means the business is being rebuilt to survive as a public company, and investors will want to see the numbers prove it before the IPO clock runs out.
