Srinivas Narayanan, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of B2B Applications at OpenAI, announced on Saturday that he will step down at the end of next week after three years with the company. In posts on X and LinkedIn, he said the timing felt appropriate following a series of product launches and added that he plans to travel to India to spend time with his family before deciding on his next move.
His exit comes at a time of tumultuous leadership changes at OpenAI, with the departures of three senior executives marking one of the most major transition periods in the company’s recent history. Kevin Weil, formerly OpenAI’s vice president for science, and Bill Peebles, the research scientist responsible for the AI video tool Sora, are the two additional executives who have stepped down.
Narayanan said he informed OpenAI leadership earlier this month and described his three years at the company as “an incredible journey that felt more like ten.” He plans to spend time with his ageing parents in India before deciding his next move.
He thanked CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman, calling his time at OpenAI “a privilege.” His exit ends a three-year tenure that saw him rise from VP of Engineering to CTO of B2B Applications, where he helped lead teams behind ChatGPT, the API platform, and enterprise tools.
Srinivas Narayanan has been serving as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of B2B Applications at OpenAI since September 2025. Born in Chennai in 1974, he is an alumnus of IIT Madras, where he completed his B.Tech in Computer Science, before pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Based in San Francisco, Narayanan played a key role in the development and scaling of ChatGPT. At OpenAI, he previously served as VP of Engineering, where he built and led the applied engineering team that turned research into products used by millions. He began his career at IBM in 1997, later founded the startup Viralizr in 2007, and went on to serve as VP of Engineering at Facebook.
The wave of resignations at OpenAI comes as reports indicate the company is tightening its focus on revenue-generating initiatives. Numerous side projects are said to be downgraded in priority or discontinued. Announcing his departure, Kevin Weil stated, “Today is my last day at OpenAI, as OpenAI for Science is being decentralized into other research teams.”