OpenAI Expands Its Leadership (Because Apparently One Sam Isn’t Enough)

I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for the past 48 hours — the day-to-day grind of actually working in tech got in the way of, well, making fun of tech. But fear not: I’ve got a great one to snap us back into snark mode.

Ready? Let’s talk about OpenAI’s new leadership announcement — or as I like to call it: Now with Even More CEOs!

Nothing says “well-oiled machine” like the phrase Co-CEOs — or in this case, CEO plus CEO of Applications plus CEO of Compute plus CEO of Research plus CEO of Safety Systems plus... (checks notes) oh wait, they’re still all technically under Sam, who remains the One CEO to Rule Them All.

You know what always works in corporate history? Splitting up the top job into a little nest of executive power cells! Ask SAP! Ask Oracle! Ask WeWork, pre-implosion! Having lots of people with ‘CEO’ in their title never leads to infighting, power struggles, or turf wars. Nope, this is totally going to be smooth sailing.

So now, Fidji Simo (formerly of Instacart and Meta, and an OpenAI board member) joins as CEO of Applications — a new role specifically carved out to handle all the “traditional” company functions like product scaling, operational chaos, and the wild challenge of turning experimental AGI research into something normal humans will pay for.

Meanwhile, Sam Altman remains CEO of All the Things, directly overseeing Research, Compute, Applications, and probably the office snack order. In his words, OpenAI is “scaling at a pace that lets us do everything simultaneously,” which sure sounds like founder-speak for we’re so big now that even I can’t keep track of who does what anymore.

But don’t worry! Sam promises to stay “closely involved” in all key decisions, because nothing says “empowered leadership” like a boss who installs new CEOs... and then still wants final say over everything.

So, to recap: OpenAI is now a research lab, a product company, an infrastructure giant, and one of the largest non-profits — and the solution to managing all that? More CEOs. Because what’s better than one overworked, overextended leader? Two! (Or maybe three or four, depending on how many they quietly hire next quarter.)

Anyway, welcome to the AGI circus, Fidji! We look forward to watching you juggle flaming AI products while Sam juggles flaming AI research — and both of you promise the audience nobody’s going to get burned.

Let the games begin.