Mira Murati, Thinking Machines Lab, and the Coming Singularity: Ex-OpenAI Leader's $10B AGI Startup

Before she became one of the most powerful names in tech, Mira Murati was a curious engineer, obsessed with the intersection of humanity and machines.

When she came across Vernor Vinge's 1993 paper, "The Coming Technological Singularity," the Albanian-born engineer was struck by the bold prediction that superintelligent systems could transform the world beyond human comprehension.

Vinge, a computer scientist, mathematician and science fiction author, predicted that artificial intelligence would one day become smarter than any human and become capable of improving itself rapidly. This would trigger a runaway effect where intelligence accelerates beyond people's control or understanding. It could be dangerous or glorious, but no matter what, Vinge predicted the impact would be transformative.

Now, at age 36, Murati finds herself at the frontier of this technological revolution. As experts predict that AGI is just around the corner, or maybe already here, she's building the systems of the future with an unprecedented level of funding. Her new company is already one of the highest valued AI startups in the world without a product.

How did she get to this point and where's this all headed?

0:00 – Origins of a Visionary
0:47 – Growing Up Under Communism
1:30 – From Theory to Action
2:03 – A Path Through Academia
2:18 – Tesla and the First Leap into AI
2:40 – Joining OpenAI
3:24 – From Research to Real-World AI
4:44 – Into the Spotlight
4:58 – The Firing Heard Around the World
6:05 – Her Graceful Exit
7:17 – Launch of Thinking Machines Lab
8:40 – A Record-Breaking Seed Round
9:27 – Multimodal and Human-Centric AI
10:20 – Securing the Future
10:48 – Meanwhile, Back at OpenAI…

#ai #agi #singularity