Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Bill Peebles, who led OpenAI’s defunct short-form video app Sora, and Kevin Weil, the vice president of OpenAI for Science, shared the news about their exits in separate posts on X on Friday.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company is decentralizing OpenAI for Science in an effort to bring its work closer to the teams that are building leading model capabilities, products and infrastructure.
The departures come just weeks after Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s product and business chief, announced she would take a medical leave because of a worsening neuroimmune condition. Kate Rouch, OpenAI’s marketing chief, also decided to step down to focus on her cancer recovery earlier this month, and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s operating chief, transitioned to a new role focused on “special projects.”
“It’s been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science,” Weil wrote on Friday.
Peebles joined OpenAI in 2023, and helped orchestrate Sora’s buzzy launch that catapulted the app to the top of Apple‘s App Store. Sora allowed users to generate short videos and post them to a shared feed, but OpenAI shuttered the app last month as it looks to reel in costs and reallocate compute resources ahead of a potential IPO.
“I’m proud of all the sleepless nights before and after the launch this team endured in order to deploy the technology in a responsible way and help steer societal norms,” Peebles wrote. “Sora was a project that could not have happened anywhere but OpenAI, and I will always deeply love this place for that.”
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