OpenAI is losing two more key leaders as it continues a major strategic shift away from flashy consumer projects and toward enterprise and developer tools.
Bill Peebles, who led the team behind the viral video generator Sora, announced his departure on Friday. This follows OpenAI's decision last month to shut down the Sora app itself, which had briefly topped the Apple App Store charts after its explosive launch.
https://twitter.com/billpeeb/status/2045225014807670949
In a post on X, Peebles wrote:
I'm incredibly grateful to Sam, Mark, Aditya, and Jakub for fostering a research environment where we could explore new ideas outside the company's main roadmap. In life, it's easy to fall into the trap of focusing only on what's most important, but for a research lab, maintaining a diversity of exploration is the only path to long-term success—and Sam understands that deeply. Sora could only have been born at OpenAI, and I'll always love this place for that.
Kevin Weil, OpenAI's vice president of science AI and former chief product officer, is also leaving, stating Friday was his last day.
He posted on X that his team would be "dispersed to other research teams."
According to Wired, the Prism scientific workspace for researchers that Weil's team recently launched will be shut down, with its features folded into the Codex desktop application. This move aligns with OpenAI's broader push to make Codex a comprehensive developer superapp, as seen in recent updates that have transformed it from a coding assistant into a desktop operator capable of controlling a computer.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company is "decentralizing OpenAI for Science so that its work is closer to the teams building leading model capabilities, products, and infrastructure."
Wired also reported that Srinivas Narayanan, OpenAI's chief technology officer for B2B applications, has left the company.
A wave of executive changes
These exits are part of a broader reshuffling at the AI giant. Just weeks ago, OpenAI's head of product and business, Fidji Simo, announced she was taking medical leave due to a worsening neuroimmune disease. Earlier this month, chief marketing officer Kate Rouch resigned to focus on cancer recovery. Brad Lightcap, the company's chief operating officer, has also moved to a new role focused on "special projects."
Weil joined OpenAI in 2024 as chief product officer and launched OpenAI for Science the following year. According to a LinkedIn post, the initiative aimed to "build the next great scientific tool: an AI-powered platform to accelerate scientific discovery." He previously held leadership roles at Meta.
"The last two years have been eye-opening, from chief product officer to joining a research team to founding OpenAI for Science," Weil wrote on Friday.
Peebles joined OpenAI in 2023 and helped orchestrate Sora's blockbuster release. The app allowed users to generate short videos and post them to a shared feed, but OpenAI shut it down last month, citing a desire to control costs and reallocate computing resources ahead of a potential IPO.
I'm proud of all the sleepless nights the team put in before and after launch to deploy this technology responsibly and help shape societal norms," Peebles wrote. "Sora could not have been born anywhere but OpenAI, and I'll always love this place for that."