Latest news with #Ex-OpenAI
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Meet Trapit Bansal, Meta's new AI superintelligence team hire - Is Meta poaching top talent from OpenAI?
Meta has poached Trapit Bansal, a key AI researcher from OpenAI who contributed significantly to their early AI reasoning and reinforcement learning efforts. Bansal's move to Meta's new AI superintelligence team underscores the intense competition for AI talent. This team aims to develop next-generation AI reasoning models, rivaling those of OpenAI and Google. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Ex-OpenAI Researcher Trapit Bansal Joins Meta A Key Figure in OpenAI's Reasoning Work Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Joining a Powerhouse Team at Meta Mark Zuckerberg's AI Hiring Spree Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads FAQs Meta has made another bold move in the AI talent wars by hiring Trapit Bansal , an AI researcher who played a pivotal role in shaping OpenAI 's early efforts in AI reasoning and reinforcement learning, according to a report by who joined OpenAI in 2022, is now among the most publicly visible names to leave the firm and join Meta's brand-new AI superintelligence team , an initiative that's fast attracting all the top minds in the field of AI, as per the spokesperson Kayla Wood confirmed the news to TechCrunch that Bansal had departed OpenAI, while even Bansal's LinkedIn page mentions that he has left OpenAI in June this year, according to the TechCrunch READ: After Canada, now US: College graduates face the toughest job market in decades – what's gone wrong? During his time at OpenAI, Bansal worked closely with co-founder Ilya Sutskever and played an instrumental role in the development of the company's foundational AI reasoning model, o1, as reported by growing interest in AI reasoning models , especially as Meta's competitors like OpenAI's o3 and DeepSeek's R1 hit new performance milestones, makes Bansal's move even more impactful, according to the READ: Karoline Leavitt says no enriched uranium was removed from Iranian nuclear sites prior to US attacks Bansal brings his expertise to an impressive team at Meta's AI superintelligence lab, which includes former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, ex-Google DeepMind researcher Jack Rae, and machine learning veteran Johan Schalkwyk, as per the report. Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported that several other former OpenAI researchers, Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, have recently joined Meta as mission of the lab is to develop next-gen AI reasoning models that may match or exceed OpenAI and Google, however, Meta has not yet put out a public AI reasoning model, as reported by READ: Last chance to claim your Fortnite refund – Act fast or risk missing out on free cash Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been making compensation deals in the $100 million range to lure top AI talent to build his new AI team, as reported by TechCrunch. However, it is not known what Bansal was offered to join in this deal, as reported by has also reportedly tried to acquire startups with heavy-hitting AI research labs, like Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence, Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Labs, and Perplexity, to further fill out its new AI unit, but those talks never progressed to a final stage, according to the a recent podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman asserted that Meta has been trying to poach his startup's top talent, but highlighted that 'none of our best people have decided to take him up on that,' quoted an AI researcher who helped OpenAI develop its first major reasoning model and worked closely with Ilya a newly formed unit aimed at developing advanced AI reasoning models, similar to those at OpenAI and Google.
Business Wire
10-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Volante Labs CEO to Speak at German Blockchain Week 2025: The Future of Real-Time Payroll Is Already Here
BERLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- German Blockchain & AI Week 2025 is set to be one of the most influential gatherings of the year for digital finance, Web3, and AI infrastructure. Held at Spielfeld Hub Berlin on June 13, the conference brings together top minds building the future of Europe–Asia finance. Ex-OpenAI AI specialist Joey Bertschler will speak at GBW 2025, revealing how Volante Labs is building blockchain's real-world killer app: global, real-time payroll — live now, card-connected, and scaling fast. Share Among the headline speakers: Joey Bertschler, CEO of Volante Labs ( and former AI specialist at OpenAI, who will appear on a dedicated panel to share how real-time payroll infrastructure is already transforming global wage systems — and why that opens the door to one of the most powerful blockchain utilities of the decade. 'What if you could get paid every hour — in stablecoins, yen, or USD — without payroll stress, delays, or middlemen?' 'We've already built that.' Joey leads Volante Labs, a multi-million-dollar hybrid company operating at the intersection of AI, blockchain, and finance. They are currently live on BTSE and BingX (VOL/USDT), powering earned wage access (EWA) and instant disbursement in emerging markets like Kenya, Vietnam, and Latin America — with upcoming expansion focused on Berlin and deep integrations already live in Japan. To bring that infrastructure directly to users, the company recently launched the Volante Card — a globally usable payment card that connects directly to the VolanteChain platform, letting users spend earnings in real time. It's one of the few crypto-backed payroll products in the world that's already functional, compliant, and in circulation. Speaking Topic From Blocks to Paychecks: Real-Time Payroll Infrastructure for a Borderless Economy A rare look into how blockchain, AI, and digital rails are converging to reshape the way workers get paid — and why it may become the backbone of tomorrow's financial system. For investors, partners, and builders interested in sustainable blockchain use cases, Volante represents more than a product — it's a global financial backbone in motion. Joey's appearance at GBW is not just a panel. It's an invitation.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mira Murati's AI startup gains prominent ex-OpenAI advisors
Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's new AI venture, Thinking Machines Lab, has gained two new prominent advisors: Bob McGrew, previously OpenAI's chief research officer, and Alec Radford, a former OpenAI researcher behind many of the company's more transformative innovations. Thinking Machines Lab's website was quietly updated with McGrew and Radford's names sometime in March. A spokesperson for the startup didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. McGrew joined OpenAI as a member of the technical staff in 2017 and was promoted to VP of research in 2018 before assuming the role of chief research officer. He left in September 2024, saying at the time that he intended to take a "break." Radford, who departed OpenAI late last year to pursue independent research after close to a decade at the company, was the lead author of OpenAI's seminal research paper on generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs). GPTs underpin OpenAI's most popular products, including the company's AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT. Radford also worked on several models in the company's GPT series as well as the speech recognition model Whisper and DALL-E, OpenAI's image-generating model. Thinking Machines Lab has so far been vague about its research agenda and product roadmap. But in an announcement in February, the startup said that it intends to build tooling to "make AI work for [people's] unique needs and goals" and to create AI systems that are "more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable" than those currently available. Murati is heading up Thinking Machines Lab as CEO. OpenAI co-founder John Schulman is the company's chief scientist, and Barret Zoph, who led model post-training at OpenAI, is the CTO. Murati left OpenAI last October after six years at the company. She came to OpenAI as VP of applied AI and partnerships. After being promoted to CTO in 2022, Murati led the company's work on ChatGPT, DALL-E, and the code-generating system Codex, which powered early versions of GitHub's Copilot programming assistant. At one point, Murati was said to be in talks to raise over $100 million from unnamed VC firms for Thinking Machines Lab, which counts dozens of employees from top AI labs including OpenAI and Google DeepMind among its ranks. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mira Murati's AI startup gains prominent ex-OpenAI advisors
Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's new AI venture, Thinking Machines Lab, has gained two new prominent advisors: Bob McGrew, previously OpenAI's chief research officer, and Alec Radford, a former OpenAI researcher behind many of the company's more transformative innovations. Thinking Machines Lab's website was quietly updated with McGrew and Radford's names sometime in March. A spokesperson for the startup didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. McGrew joined OpenAI as a member of the technical staff in 2017 and was promoted to VP of research in 2018 before assuming the role of chief research officer. He left in September 2024, saying at the time that he intended to take a "break." Radford, who departed OpenAI late last year to pursue independent research after close to a decade at the company, was the lead author of OpenAI's seminal research paper on generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs). GPTs underpin OpenAI's most popular products, including the company's AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT. Radford also worked on several models in the company's GPT series as well as the speech recognition model Whisper and DALL-E, OpenAI's image-generating model. Thinking Machines Lab has so far been vague about its research agenda and product roadmap. But in an announcement in February, the startup said that it intends to build tooling to "make AI work for [people's] unique needs and goals" and to create AI systems that are "more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable" than those currently available. Murati is heading up Thinking Machines Lab as CEO. OpenAI co-founder John Schulman is the company's chief scientist, and Barret Zoph, who led model post-training at OpenAI, is the CTO. Murati left OpenAI last October after six years at the company. She came to OpenAI as VP of applied AI and partnerships. After being promoted to CTO in 2022, Murati led the company's work on ChatGPT, DALL-E, and the code-generating system Codex, which powered early versions of GitHub's Copilot programming assistant. At one point, Murati was said to be in talks to raise over $100 million from unnamed VC firms for Thinking Machines Lab, which counts dozens of employees from top AI labs including OpenAI and Google DeepMind among its ranks. Sign in to access your portfolio
