Mumbai, August 6: Mira Murati was an ex-CTO of OpenAI who left the Sam Altman-run company to open her own AI startup, Thinking Machines Labs. Mira Murati has been focusing on developing artificial intelligence and will probably introduce AGI (artificial general intelligence) in the future. Recently, she turned down Mark Zuckerberg's USD 1 billion offer to recruit her team members into his Superintelligence Lab for developing AGI.

Mira Murati's entire team rejected Meta's USD 1 billion offer and chose to stay with her Thinking Machines Lab startup. Following the early offer, Meta reportedly offered yet higher USD 1.5 billion to get the top engineers for its AI dream lab. Meta successfully hired top engineers from Google. Meta Hiring Spree: Mira Murati’s Entire Team From Thinking Machines Lab Company Rejects USD 1 Billion Offer by Mark Zuckerberg’s Firm To Join Superintelligence Labs.

Mira Murati, AI Leader and Founder of Thinking Machines Lab

Mira Murati worked as CTO at OpenAI for six years. However, she decided to quit the ChatGPT-making AI firm to pursue her own goals. She started the Thinking Machines Lab around February 2025, the same month she left the company. Reports said that Murati officially stepped down as Chief Technology Officer from OpenAI around September 2024.

Mira Murati's Educational Qualifications and Early Works

Thinking Machines Lab founder and CEO Mira Murati holds two degrees - a Bachelor of Arts in Colby College, completed in 2011, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree completed in 2012 from Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. She started her career by working at Zodiac Aerospace as an intern. In 2013, she joined Elon Musk' EV company Tesla as a product manager on the Model X based on her degree in mechanical engineering.

Mira Murati worked for augmented reality startup Leap Motion (now called Ultraleap) from 2016 onwards. She joined OpenAI in 2018 as VP of Applied AI and was later promoted to CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Mira Murati’s AI Startup Thinking Machines Raises USD 2 Billion in Early-Stage Funding With Participation From NVIDIA, CISCO, AMD and More.

Thinking Machines Completed Early Stage Funding

Mira Murati's AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab, raised USD 2 billion in early-stage funding with participation from NVIDIA, CISCO, AMD and others. After this funding round, the company's total valuation reached USD 12 billion. It was reported that the company was working on developing advanced multimodal AI and hiring top talent for its projects.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 06, 2025 05:05 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).