Srinivas Narayanan, a senior researcher at OpenAI, has departed the company. In a post on the social platform X, Narayanan stated his primary reason for leaving is to spend time with his aging parents in India.
Narayanan, who holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, joined OpenAI in 2023. His work focused on reasoning and post-training research for large language models like ChatGPT, contributing to their development and capabilities.
His departure follows a period of significant executive turnover and internal tension at OpenAI, including the high-profile exits of co-founder Ilya Sutskever and senior researcher Jan Leike in 2024. Narayanan's exit is seen as part of this broader trend of key technical talent leaving the AI research lab.
In his statement, Narayanan expressed gratitude for his time at OpenAI and indicated he is considering his next steps, which may involve working on AI safety and security. He did not announce a new position at another company.
