Greg Brockman takes the helm at OpenAI

OpenAI has weathered one of the most turbulent years in its history. The company spent months locked in a sensational jury trial with former co-founder Elon Musk, faced a high-profile trade secrets lawsuit from Apple, and drew intense scrutiny after an unreleased model reportedly hacked another AI firm. As the organization gears up for an IPO, a steady exodus of top executives has unfolded, including several of its most recognizable figures.

Amid this chaos, one person has quietly accumulated significant influence: Greg Brockman.

Brockman, who serves as OpenAI’s president and co-founder, has been a constant presence since the company’s earliest days. He is often described as the engineering workhorse who pushed to build the scaled-up systems needed to train the AI and make it functional. His ambition was evident from the start; a personal journal entry from 2017 famously asked, “Financially what will take me to $1B?” Today, his stake in OpenAI is worth nearly 30 times that amount. Yet in the beginning, he shared decision-making power with other co-founders, including chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and CEO Sam Altman.

Now, while Brockman’s official title has remained unchanged for years, his responsibilities have grown dramatically. He has effectively become the company’s second-in-command, and when it comes to daily operations, he is the top authority.

Executive departures have been a recurring theme at OpenAI throughout the year, but April marked a turning point. That month saw the exits of Bill Peebles, former head of Sora; Kevin Weil, VP of OpenAI’s science arm; and Srinivas Narayanan, CTO of B2B applications. Two other leaders left for medical reasons: CMO Kate Rouch and Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI deployment, who took leave in April and officially resigned in July. The reshuffling has continued into this month, with CRO Denise Dresser, who had absorbed numerous additional duties after the April shakeups, announcing her departure after just eight months on the job. Days later, Brad Lightcap, who had recently overseen special projects after a long tenure as COO, revealed plans to leave and pursue a new venture.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Several of these exits, such as those of Rouch, Peebles, and Weil, did not directly alter Brockman’s standing. Others, however, expanded his reach. When Simo went on medical leave, Brockman assumed control over all product-related matters, including leading OpenAI’s super app efforts.

That role grew even larger the following month, when OpenAI underwent another executive reorganization aimed at boosting revenue. The restructuring placed Brockman in charge of not only product strategy but also the company’s entire scaling division, giving him oversight of nearly every facet of its commercial operations. Simo’s formal departure, which came just weeks after OpenAI filed for its IPO, cemented this arrangement. Notably, when Dresser left last week, the press release included a quote from Brockman rather than CEO Sam Altman. In it, he stated that the company would “build out the full system to make AI broadly useful for people and businesses.”

For outside observers, these shifts signal OpenAI’s intensified focus on revenue generation as its IPO approaches, along with a push to create products that will set it apart from rival Anthropic. Executive role changes often serve as a strong indicator of strategic direction, according to Harrison Rolfes, a senior research analyst at PitchBook. “When you have someone like Greg Brockman, for example, he’s more of a product scale and commercial sort of guy. He has a deep technical knowledge that essentially will collapse certain decisionmaking layers,” he told The Verge.

This consolidation could also lead to more departures among lower-level staff, Rolfes suggested. “Whatever he says goes now. If, let’s say, you’re below Brockman and you don’t agree with his approach but you’re a lead researcher, whatever it may be, you’re not going to work there anymore. You’re going to say, ‘I’m going to leave.’”

Brockman’s authority now trails only that of Altman, who deliberately consolidated power after his clash with OpenAI’s board in 2023. The two did not always see eye to eye in the company’s early years. Brockman occasionally sided with Sutskever on tough decisions regarding power dynamics and questioned some of Altman’s ambitions, while also worrying that Musk might “steamroll” Altman. But he has largely remained close to Altman both personally and professionally. When Altman was ousted as CEO in November 2023, Brockman immediately resigned in solidarity and began planning a new AI venture with him. Since then, their alignment has only strengthened.

Centralizing authority offers practical advantages for OpenAI, including trimming some of its most costly executive salaries to improve its financial standing, said Ross Carmel, a partner at Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel (SRFC). “When you’re going into an IPO, particularly for a company like OpenAI, who is lagging behind Anthropic in terms of revenue, you want to decrease those expenses so that this way, you’re either more profitable or closer to profitable,” he explained. Still, he noted that while executive departures before a public listing are not uncommon, the sheer concentration of them in such a short window is unusual.

Although experts told The Verge that the wave of exits was more intense than typical and could raise concerns, Brockman dismissed any notion of trouble during a Monday appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “There have been different eras where we have different sets of leaders in place. I’m a constant, Sam Altman is a constant, and I think that we are stronger because of that resilience and diversity,” he said.

Brockman’s defining trait has been his ability to turn OpenAI’s research into practical, marketable products. Back in 2020, he hailed GPT-3 and its developer API as “the first time that OpenAI has had a general-purpose AI system that’s immediately commercially valuable, it’s actually useful.” More than five years later, the challenge is making those products profitable.

Carmel believes OpenAI is counting on Brockman to generate consumer revenue rather than merely playing catch-up with Anthropic on the enterprise front. “In order for OpenAI to be successful and really differentiate themselves from Anthropic, they need hardware and consumer products to sell to consumers, and that’s what Greg does well,” he said. Rolfes predicted that OpenAI would unveil some form of consumer product under Brockman’s leadership by the end of September, allowing him to demonstrate that he deserves the expanded role.

“That’s the biggest worry that a lot of public investors have now,” Rolfes added. “They’re going to say, ‘Hey, does Greg have what it takes to run more of OpenAI, and is OpenAI building this institution that can operate without really depending heavily on him, on both Greg and Sam?’”