OpenAI loses another top executive, as Brad Lightcap leaves ‘to start something new’

• OpenAI veteran Brad Lightcap is leaving the company “to start something new.”
• Lightcap worked for years as the company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
• His departure joins a string of others for the ChatGPT-maker as it turns toward an IPO.

Veteran OpenAI executive Brad Lightcap announced on Tuesday that he’s leaving the company, the latest departure at the AI juggernaut as it orients itself toward an initial public offering.

Lightcap served as the company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer during his eight-year tenure, and most recently led a special projects team at OpenAI. He shared a goodbye message with staff and reposted it to X, calling the departure “bittersweet” and saying that he was leaving “to start something new.”

He said he planned to continue helping advance OpenAI’s mission “from a different vantage point,” but offered no details. Lightcap said he’d still be around and available to staff for a few weeks.

When asked for comment, OpenAI pointed to Lightcap’s post Lightcap did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lightcap’s departure comes just a month after Fidji Simo, also formerly a top OpenAI executive, announced that she’d be stepping down into an advisory role at the company. Johannes Heidecke, OpenAI’s head of safety systems, also left in July. Other recent departures include the company’s AI ethics lead Chloé Bakalar and chief futurist Joshua Achiam, the Financial Times reported.

Lightcap transitioned to his special projects role in April. An internal memo at the time said he would report to CEO Sam Altman and help expand OpenAI’s enterprise software sales through private equity partnerships. Denise Dresser, the company’s then-new chief revenue officer, took on some of Lightcap’s other commercial duties.

Before joining OpenAI in 2018, Lightcap invested at Y Combinator, worked at Dropbox on strategic finance, and was an investment banking analyst at J.P. Morgan.

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