Srinivas Narayanan, an IIT Madras alumnus who played a major role in scaling ChatGPT and OpenAI’s developer platform, has announced that he will leave OpenAI at the end of next week after more than three years at the company.
Narayanan shared the update in a post on X and LinkedIn, calling his stint at OpenAI “three incredible years” and saying the timing felt right after recent and upcoming product launches.
“I am looking forward to spending some much-needed time with my aging parents in India before deciding what’s next,” he wrote.
His exit comes at a time when OpenAI is expanding rapidly across consumer and enterprise AI products.
THE IIT MADRAS ALUMNUS BEHIND CHATGPT’S GROWTH
Narayanan studied Computer Science at IIT Madras, completing his BTech between 1991 and 1995. He later earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
At OpenAI, he most recently served as CTO of B2B Applications. Before that, he was Vice President of Engineering, leading key teams responsible for ChatGPT, OpenAI’s API platform, and the infrastructure powering them.
In his farewell note, Narayanan said he also led the Applied Engineering team when it was still a small group of around 40 people. Under that team’s watch, OpenAI launched some of the fastest-growing products in tech history.
“We shipped some of the fastest-growing products in history, like ChatGPT and the API,” he wrote.
CAREER ACROSS SILICON VALLEY
Before OpenAI, Narayanan built a long career in Silicon Valley across major firms and startups.
| Stage | Details |
|---|---|
| IIT Madras | BTech, Computer Science |
| Wisconsin-Madison | MS, Computer Science |
| IBM Almaden | Worked on database systems |
| Tavant Technologies | Senior technology leadership |
| Viralizr | Co-founder and CTO |
| Meta (Facebook) | 13+ years in engineering leadership |
| OpenAI | Joined in 2023 |
At Meta, he led engineering for Facebook Photos and later worked on large-scale AI systems involving language, computer vision, recommendations and speech tools used across products.
WHY HIS EXIT MATTERS
Narayanan was one of the senior leaders helping convert OpenAI’s research breakthroughs into products used by millions. That includes ChatGPT’s explosive rise and the growth of OpenAI’s business-facing API services used by startups and large companies.
There is no announcement yet on who will replace him.
For many in India, his journey from IIT Madras to the top ranks of global AI is already notable. His role in helping scale ChatGPT has only added to that story.
