Exclusive-OpenAI’s chief people officer to depart, company says

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By Anna Tong

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -OpenAI’s chief people officer, Julia Villagra, is leaving the company on Friday, the company confirmed to Reuters.

Villagra joined the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence maker in February 2024 as the head of human resources, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In March, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that she had been promoted to the chief people officer role.

OpenAI’s CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, who recently started, will be hiring a new chief people officer, and in the interim, its chief strategy officer Jason Kwon will be running Villagra’s function, the company said.

Villagra is leaving to pursue her personal passion of using art, music and storytelling to help people understand the transition to artificial general intelligence, which OpenAI defines as when AI “outperforms humans at most economically valuable work.”

As AI reshapes jobs, industries and day-to-day life, it is stirring concerns in many Americans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

While at present there are few signs of mass unemployment – the U.S. jobless rate was just 4.2% in July – 71% of the poll’s respondents said they were concerned that AI will be “putting too many people out of work permanently.”

At the same time, Microsoft-backed OpenAI is in the midst of an unprecedented talent war, driven by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has offered $100 million signing bonuses to OpenAI researchers.

OpenAI recently discussed an employee share sale that would value the startup at $500 billion, up from its current $300 billion valuation, underscoring both its rapid gain in users and revenue as well as the need for more cash as the intense competition for AI research talent ratchets up.

(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Sandra Maler and Stephen Coates)