Sam Altman just got two new colleagues at OpenAI: Sarah Friar and Kevin Weil
OpenAI announced Monday that Sarah Friar and Kevin Weil will be the company's new CFO and Chief Product Officer, respectively.
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- OpenAI is hiring Sarah Friar and Kevin Weil to join its C-suite.
- Friar most recently served as CEO of Nextdoor and will be CFO.
- Weil joins from Planet Labs and will be chief product officer.
Sam Altman will have some top-tier talent joining him in the OpenAI C-suite.
The company announced Monday that Sarah Friar and Kevin Weil will be the company's new CFO and chief product officer, respectively.
"Sarah and Kevin bring a depth of experience that will enable OpenAI to scale our operations, set a strategy for the next phase of growth, and ensure that our teams have the resources they need to continue to thrive," Altman said in the announcement.
In a post on X, Weil called OpenAI's mission "perhaps the most important and transformative of them all."
I’m super excited to announce that I’m joining @OpenAI as Chief Product Officer!
— Kevin Weil ???????? (@kevinweil) June 10, 2024
My entire career has been about working on big missions: connecting people and ideas at @Instagram and @Twitter, digitizing financial services at Libra/Novi, or most recently at @Planet, using space…
Friar was most recently CEO of Nextdoor and previously served as CFO at Square. She has also worked at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Salesforce.
Weil was head of product and business for Planet Labs, as well as the cofounder of the Libra cryptocurrency, VP of Product for Novi at Facebook, VP of Product at Instagram, and SVP of Product at Twitter.
The announcement comes after OpenAI — and Altman's leadership in particular — have come under scrutiny because of safety concerns as AI evolves.
"The world isn't ready, and we aren't ready," former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo wrote in an email announcing his resignation, according to The New York Times. "I'm concerned we are rushing forward regardless and rationalizing our actions."
Several other researchers have resigned from the company as concerns mount about governance and whether it's moving toward a more profit-oriented approach.
In a statement, Friar said, "My goal is to help OpenAI continue excelling at what it does best—producing top-tier research and collaborating to maximize the benefits of AI tools for everyone."