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Mira Murati is the Albanian-American technologist whose career trajectory — from automotive engineering at Tesla through six and a half years building applied AI products at OpenAI to the founding of her own laboratory in 2025 — has placed her among the most-followed engineering leaders of the contemporary AI industry. After serving as Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI from 2022 and briefly as interim CEO during the company’s November 2023 leadership crisis, Murati left in September 2024 and announced the formation of Thinking Machines Lab in February 2025. The new laboratory has been the subject of substantial industry attention through 2025 and 2026.
| Mira Murati – Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Mira Murati |
| Born | 16 December 1988 – Vlore, Albania |
| Nationality | Albanian-American |
| Known For | Founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab (2025-); former CTO and briefly interim CEO of OpenAI (2018-2024) |
| Education | Pearson College UWC (Canada, 2008); BE Mechanical Engineering, Dartmouth College (2012) |
| Companies / Roles | Goldman Sachs (intern); Zodiac Aerospace; Tesla (senior product manager, Model X, 2013-2016); Leap Motion (2016-2018); OpenAI (2018-2024); Thinking Machines Lab (founder, 2025-) |
| Public Profile | @miramurati |
Early Life and Education in Albania
Mira Murati was born in Vlore, on the southern Albanian coast, in December 1988 – shortly before the political transition that ended decades of communist isolation in the country. She has spoken in published interviews about a household that emphasised education as a path to international opportunity. At sixteen, she received a scholarship to attend Pearson College, one of the United World Colleges, on Vancouver Island in Canada.
From Pearson, Murati was admitted to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where she completed a Bachelor of Engineering in mechanical engineering, graduating in 2012. Her Dartmouth thesis focused on the design of a hybrid race car, an early indicator of her interest in the intersection of engineering and consumer products.
Tesla and the Model X Years
After short stints at Goldman Sachs and Zodiac Aerospace, Murati joined Tesla in 2013 as a senior product manager working on the Model X. She was at Tesla through the Model X’s development and 2015 launch, working on programme management for the vehicle’s drive systems and on early prototyping of the company’s wider technology stack.
According to her published interviews, the Tesla period gave her sustained exposure to large-scale embedded systems and the integration of machine-learning components into shipping consumer products. She has cited the experience as foundational to her later work on applied AI.
Leap Motion and Joining OpenAI
In 2016, Murati left Tesla to join Leap Motion, a Silicon Valley startup focused on hand-tracking and gesture-based interaction technology, where she served as VP of Product and Engineering. The role involved overseeing software and hardware integration for an early consumer-grade depth-sensing peripheral.
In June 2018 she joined OpenAI, then a relatively small AI research organisation. According to public statements from Sam Altman and others, she was hired to lead the applied side of the laboratory’s work – turning research outputs into products and APIs that external developers could use.
Six and a Half Years at OpenAI
Murati’s tenure at OpenAI spanned the laboratory’s transition from a pure research organisation into one of the most commercially significant AI companies in the industry. She led the productisation of GPT-3 (2020), DALL-E (2021), Codex (2021 – the technology underlying GitHub Copilot), and ChatGPT (2022). She also led the team behind Sora, the company’s video-generation system disclosed in 2024.
In May 2022, OpenAI promoted Murati to Chief Technology Officer. She remained in the role until September 2024. During this period, she became one of the most publicly visible technical leaders in the industry, giving long-form interviews to The Atlantic, Bloomberg, and other major outlets.
The November 2023 Leadership Crisis
On 17 November 2023, the OpenAI board of directors removed Sam Altman as chief executive in a decision that was widely reported in international press. Murati was appointed interim CEO the same day – a role she held for approximately three days before Altman returned to the position following pressure from employees and investors.
The episode, subsequently covered in detail by The Verge, The New York Times, and others, became one of the most-discussed corporate-governance events of the year in the technology industry. Murati’s role during the period was widely characterised in coverage as a stabilising one. She returned to the CTO role after Altman’s reinstatement.
Departure and Founding Thinking Machines Lab
On 25 September 2024, Murati announced her departure from OpenAI in a public statement on X, citing a desire to “create the time and space to do my own exploration.” Her exit was part of a broader sequence of senior-leadership departures from OpenAI through late 2024.
In February 2025, Murati publicly disclosed the formation of Thinking Machines Lab, a new artificial-intelligence research and product organisation. The launch was widely covered in The Information, Reuters, and Bloomberg. Public reporting indicated that Thinking Machines closed a seed round of approximately $2 billion in 2025 – one of the largest seed rounds in technology-industry history – led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from a broad set of strategic and institutional investors.
Tinker and the Lab’s Direction
In October 2025, Thinking Machines Lab released its first product, Tinker, described in the company’s own communications as a research-oriented platform for working with frontier-scale language models. Coverage in TechCrunch and other outlets characterised Tinker as targeted at advanced researchers and engineers rather than consumer end-users, distinguishing it from OpenAI’s mass-market products.
The laboratory has hired heavily from across the industry, with reported recruits including former OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic researchers. Murati has spoken in subsequent interviews about a research culture that prioritises long-horizon work alongside product output.
Public Statements and Industry Engagement
Throughout her OpenAI tenure and the subsequent period at Thinking Machines, Murati has been a regular participant in industry-policy discussions, including engagements with US and EU regulators on AI governance and the development of frontier-model evaluation frameworks. She has co-signed multiple public letters on AI safety and has spoken about the responsibilities that accompany the deployment of large AI systems at scale.
She has also been one of the most visible women in the technical leadership of the contemporary AI industry, regularly featured in profiles by Wired, TIME, and other publications covering the field.
Mira Murati Today
As of 2026, Murati continues to lead Thinking Machines Lab as founder and CEO. According to public coverage, the company has expanded headcount substantially through 2025 and 2026 and has signalled additional product launches following the initial Tinker release. She remains based primarily in San Francisco.
Beyond Thinking Machines, Murati continues to engage publicly on AI policy and to mentor early-career engineers and researchers. She has not, in published interviews, indicated any near-term intention to step away from the operating-company role.
Career Timeline
- 1988 – Born in Vlore, Albania
- 2005 – Moves to Canada on Pearson College scholarship
- 2008 – Enrolls at Dartmouth College
- 2012 – Graduates with BE in mechanical engineering
- 2013 – Joins Tesla as senior product manager (Model X)
- 2016 – Joins Leap Motion as VP of Product and Engineering
- June 2018 – Joins OpenAI
- May 2022 – Promoted to Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI
- November 2023 – Briefly serves as interim CEO during OpenAI leadership crisis
- September 2024 – Departs OpenAI
- February 2025 – Publicly announces Thinking Machines Lab
- 2025 – Thinking Machines reportedly closes ~$2B seed round
- October 2025 – Thinking Machines releases first product, Tinker
Sources & References
- Mira Murati – Wikipedia
- Thinking Machines Lab – Official Site
- OpenAI – Official Site
- Bloomberg coverage of Thinking Machines launch
- The Information – reporting on AI laboratories
- Reuters – Murati OpenAI departure
This article is an editorial profile of a public figure based on publicly available information at the time of publication. Specific dates, roles, and reported funding amounts reflect public reporting at the time. Nothing in this article constitutes financial, investment, or legal advice. Corrections and updates are made as new information becomes available.
