Sarah Friar has been hired as the new CFO at OpenAI

OpenAI announced on June 10 that it has hired Sarah Friar, the former CEO of Nextdoor, as its first Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Sarah Friar, who previously served as CFO at Square and is currently a member of Walmart’s board, will bring significant financial and operational expertise to the artificial intelligence firm. In addition, OpenAI has appointed Kevin Weil, who has held senior roles at Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as Chief Product Officer. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, stated that Friar and Weil’s extensive experience will be crucial in scaling operations, strategizing for growth, and ensuring the necessary resources for the company’s teams. These new hires come after the departure of OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever in May. Sutskever, pivotal in developing GPT-4 and OpenAI Five, was replaced by Jakub Pachocki, the former research director at OpenAI. Sutskever’s exit followed a period of internal turmoil, including Altman’s dramatic firing and subsequent rehiring in November of the previous year.

Before hiring Sarah Friar, Sutskever initially supported Altman’s dismissal as a board member but later reversed his stance, signing an employee letter advocating for Altman’s return and expressing regret for his involvement in the firing. After Altman’s reinstatement, Sutskever was removed from the board, leaving his future role at the company uncertain. Earlier this year, OpenAI also saw the departure of Andrej Karpathy, a founding member and prominent AI researcher. To bolster its leadership, OpenAI appointed new directors in March, including Altman, Sue Desmond-Hellmann (former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Nicole Seligman (former president of Sony Entertainment), and Fidji Simo (CEO of Instacart). These strategic leadership changes signal OpenAI’s commitment to strengthening its governance and guiding the company through its next growth phase in the rapidly evolving AI industry.