TIME100 AI 2026 · Thinkers
Mira Murati
Co-founder and CEO, Thinking Machines Lab
Served as OpenAI's interim CEO during the 2023 ouster, then co-founded Thinking Machines Lab, whose $2 billion raise TIME calls the largest seed round ever.
- Born
- 1988-12-16, Vlorë, Albania
- Now
- Co-founder and CEO, Thinking Machines Lab
- Studied
- Dartmouth College, Colby College
Interesting facts
- Early start
Left Albania at 16 on a scholarship to Pearson College UWC on Vancouver Island, Canada.
en.wikipedia.org - Before AI
Was a product manager on Tesla's Model X, then ran product and engineering at AR startup Leap Motion before OpenAI.
en.wikipedia.org - Turning point
Was OpenAI's interim CEO for three days in November 2023 after the board removed Sam Altman.
en.wikipedia.org - Numbers
Its first open-weights model, Inkling, has 975 billion parameters and was trained on 45 trillion tokens.
simonwillison.net - In their words
Says success is measured by what the company delivers, not how much of the founding team remains.
time.com
Career
- Thinking Machines LabCo-founder and CEO2025 to now
- OpenAIChief Technology Officer2018–2024
- Leap MotionVP of Product and Engineering2016–2018
- TeslaSenior Product Manager, Model X2013–2016
Education
- BE, Mechanical engineering, Dartmouth College, 2012
- BA, Colby College, 2011
