Who is Mira Murati? Former OpenAI CTO who rejected Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta's whopping Rs 8,700 crore offer to join...

Mira Murati, an Albanian-American business executive and a key figure in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), has grabbed headlines for rejecting a massive offer from Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta. Mira, who is a former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at ChatGPT-creator OpenAI and now leads a startup, said no to a staggering USD 1 billion (well over Rs 8,700 crore) offer to join Meta's new AI venture. Let us tell you in brief about the educational background and career highlights of Mira.

What is Mira's educational and career background?
Born in 1988 in Albania, Mira left the small European country on a scholarship to Pearson College in Canada at the age of 16. She went on to study in the United States, earning a degree in mathematics from Colby College and another in mechanical engineering from Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering. After completing her education, Mira began working at Elon Musk's Tesla as a senior product manager for the Model X, an experience that sparked her interest in AI tech. She later moved to Leap Motion -- an augmented reality startup -- before joining OpenAI in 2018 as Vice President of Applied AI and Partnerships. There, she rose to the position of CTO in May 2022. At the company, she led the development of transformative AI models such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Codex.

What has Mira been up to after leaving OpenAI?
In September last year, Mira announced that she was leaving OpenAI to start her own entrepreneurial journey. She launched a startup, Thinking Machines Lab, in February 2025. The business focuses on developing AI systems that are relatively more understandable and customisable. The startup has reportedly raised USD 2 billion in a seed funding round that valued the company at an estimated USD 12 billion.