She may not have the same name recognition as other tech execs like Tim Cook, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg—not yet, anyway—but Mira Murati is one of the most-watched entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. The former chief technology officer from OpenAI, who left to launch her own AI startup last year, just celebrated a major milestone: Her company, Thinking Machines Lab, just launched its first product this week, called Tinker. Rather than be another generative-AI chatbot like ChatGPT, Tinker is designed to help researchers and developers fine-tune AI models without the need to manage massive computing infrastructure. The launch represents the first commercial product from Thinking Machines, which raised a record-breaking $2 billion in seed funding at a $12 billion valuation.
Murati, the 36-year-old Albanian-American engineer-turned-executive, has emerged as a defining figure in the AI boom. Her journey from a mechanical engineering student to the chief technology officer who helped create ChatGPT exemplifies the rapid transformation of both AI technology and the careers of those building it. More recently, her ability to resist Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive recruitment efforts—including reported billion-dollar offers to acquire her company and poach her talent—has solidified her reputation as a leader willing to chart her own course in an industry dominated by tech giants.
From Albania to the world stage
Born on December 16, 1988, in Vlorë, Albania, during the final years of the country’s totalitarian regime, Murati’s early life was shaped by political upheaval and economic uncertainty. Her parents, both high school teachers who taught literature, encouraged her academic pursuits, but Murati told Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott in 2023 that she had an “organic interest towards math and science,” where she excelled in Olympiads and competitions throughout her schooling.
At 16, Murati won a scholarship from United World Colleges—a program that brings together students from over 80 countries to promote intercultural understanding and social responsibility—to study at Pearson College on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. But after graduating from Pearson in 2005, Murati pursued an unusual academic path that would prove prescient for her later career. She enrolled in a dual-degree program, completing a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Colby College in 2011 and a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering in 2012. This combination of liberal arts and engineering disciplines provided her with both analytical thinking skills and technical expertise, which would prove handy in her later roles in Silicon Valley.
Murati’s professional journey began with a summer analyst internship at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo in 2011, followed by a brief stint as an Advanced Concepts Engineer at Zodiac Aerospace from 2012 to 2013. She joined Tesla that same year as a senior product manager for the Model X program, contributing to the development of Tesla’s SUV project. In 2016, she joined Leap Motion, an augmented-reality startup, as vice president of product and engineering. During her two-year tenure, she focused on advancing human-computer interaction technology, helping shape the company’s product offerings and market strategy. This role positioned her perfectly for the next phase of her career in AI development.
The OpenAI years
Murati joined OpenAI in June 2018, as vice president of applied AI and partnerships, during a pivotal period for the organization. She quickly rose through the ranks, becoming senior vice president of research, product and partnerships in 2020, before being promoted to chief technology officer in 2022.
As CTO, Murati oversaw the development of some of the most transformative AI technologies of the modern era. She led teams working on ChatGPT, DALL-E, Codex, and Sora—products that fundamentally changed how the public interacts with artificial intelligence. Her leadership was instrumental in scaling OpenAI from a research organization to one of the most important AI companies in the world.
In November 2023, Murati briefly found herself at the center of Silicon Valley drama when she was named interim CEO following Sam Altman’s sudden removal by OpenAI’s board. Though her tenure lasted only three days before being replaced by Emmett Shear, who then stepped aside when Altman was reinstated, the episode highlighted her standing within the organization and the industry—and, given the media firestorm, it ended up being the first time many people heard the name “Mira Murati.”
However, Murati’s tenure at OpenAI was not without controversy. At a speaking engagement at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, Murati made comments about AI’s impact on creative jobs that sparked significant backlash. “Some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” she said. Critics, including from Dartmouth’s own student body, accused her of being tone-deaf to the concerns of artists and writers whose livelihoods are threatened by AI automation.
Despite the controversy, Murati has consistently advocated for responsible AI development and government regulation. In a 2023 interview with Time Magazine, she said: “It’s important for OpenAI and companies like ours to bring this into the public consciousness in a way that’s controlled and responsible. But we’re a small group of people and we need a ton more input in this system and a lot more input that goes beyond the technologies—definitely regulators and governments and everyone else.”
Building Thinking Machines Lab
In September 2024, Murati announced her departure from OpenAI to pursue “my own exploration,” publishing the note she shared with her fellow employees on X.
“There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right. Our recent releases of speech-to-speech and OpenAl o1 mark the beginning of a new era in interaction and intelligence — achievements made possible by your ingenuity and craftsmanship,” she said. “I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to build and work alongside this remarkable team.”
Months later, in February of this year, Murati officially launched Thinking Machines Lab, a public benefit corporation focused on developing AI systems that are more accessible, customizable, and human-aligned. The startup assembled an impressive roster of talent, recruiting approximately 30 researchers and engineers from leading AI firms including former colleagues from OpenAI, as well as experts from Google, Meta, Mistral, and Character AI. The team’s collective expertise and Murati’s track record enabled the company to raise $2 billion in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Nvidia, AMD, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, and Jane Street, giving her startup a $12 billion valuation.
Resisting Silicon Valley giants
The true test of Murati’s leadership came when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched what The Wall Street Journal called a “full-scale raid” on her startup. Zuckerberg reportedly approached more than a dozen employees at the 50-person company, offering packages ranging from $200 million to $1.5 billion over multiple years. One researcher reportedly received an offer worth over $1 billion, while others were promised earnings between $50 million and $100 million in their first year alone.
The aggressive recruitment campaign targeted key figures including Andrew Tulloch, Murati’s co-founder and a machine-learning expert who previously worked at Meta for over a decade. Despite the astronomical offers, not a single employee accepted Meta’s proposals—a remarkable display of loyalty in an industry where talent frequently moves for financial incentives.
This resistance speaks to both Murati’s leadership and the team’s belief in Thinking Machines Lab’s mission. As she said when announcing the company’s funding: “We believe AI should serve as an extension of individual agency and, in the spirit of freedom, be distributed as widely and equitably as possible.”
Murati’s present and AI’s future
With Tinker’s launch, Thinking Machines Lab is betting that the next frontier in AI lies not in building ever-larger models, but in democratizing access to advanced capabilities through fine-tuning tools. The platform currently allows users to customize Meta’s Llama and Alibaba’s Qwen models using just a few lines of code, handling the complexity of distributed training that typically requires specialized expertise and significant computing resources.
“We believe [Tinker] will help empower researchers and developers to experiment with models and will make frontier capabilities much more accessible to all people,” Murati told Wired. The company plans to release additional scientific findings to help the broader research community understand frontier AI systems.
As the AI industry continues to evolve at breakneck speed, Murati’s approach offers a compelling alternative to the winner-take-all dynamics that have come to define Silicon Valley. Whether Thinking Machines Lab can maintain this independence while scaling its technology and influence remains to be seen, but Murati’s track record suggests she’s building something designed to last.
Last June, Murati discussed a wide range of topics at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women dinner in San Francisco, including the Apple partnership, safety and privacy concerns, how she found her love for AI, and more. You can watch the full conversation below.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
The must-haves for building a market-leading business include vision, talent, culture, product innovation and customer focus. But what’s the secret to success with a merger or acquisition?
I was asked about this in the wake of Salesforce’s recently completed $8 billion acquisition of Informatica. In part, I believe that people are paying attention because deal-making is up in 2025. M&A volume reached $2.2 trillion in the first half of the year, a 27% increase compared to a year ago, according to JP Morgan. Notably, 72% of that volume involved deals greater than $1 billion.
There will be thousands of mergers and acquisitions in the United States this year across industries and involving companies of all sizes. It’s not unusual for startups to position themselves to be snapped up. But Informatica, founded in 1993, didn’t fit that mold. We have been building, delivering, supporting and partnering for many years. Much of the value we bring to Salesforce and its customers is our long-earned experience and expertise in enterprise data management.
Although, in other respects, a “legacy” software company like ours — founded well before cloud computing was mainstream — and early-stage startups aren’t so different. We all must move fast and differentiate. And established vendors and growth-oriented startups have a few things in common when it comes to M&A, as well.
First and foremost is a need to ensure that the strategies of the two companies involved are in alignment. That seems obvious, but it’s easier said than done. Are their tech stacks based on open protocols and standards? Are they cloud-native by design? And, now more than ever, are they both AI-powered and AI-enabling? All of these came together in the case of Salesforce and Informatica, including our shared belief in agentic AI as the next major breakthrough in business technology.
Don’t take your foot off the gas
In the days after the acquisition was completed, I was asked during a media interview if good luck was a factor in bringing together these two tech industry stalwarts. Replace good luck with good timing, and the answer is a resounding, “Yes!”
As more businesses pursue the productivity and other benefits of agentic AI, they require high-quality data to be successful. These are two areas where Salesforce and Informatica excel, respectively. And the agentic AI opportunity — estimated to grow to $155 billion by 2030 — is here and now. So the timing of the acquisition was perfect.
Tremendous effort goes into keeping an organization on track, leading up to an acquisition and then seeing it through to a smooth and successful completion. In the few months between the announcement of Salesforce’s intent to acquire Informatica and the close, we announced new partnerships and customer engagements and a fall product release that included autonomous AI agents, MCP servers and more.
In other words, there’s no easing into the new future. We must maintain the pace of business because the competitive environment and our customers require it. That’s true whether you’re a small, venture-funded organization or, like us, an established firm with thousands of employees and customers. Going forward we plan to keep doing what we do best: help organizations connect, manage and unify their AI data.
Out with the old, in with the new
It’s wrong to think of an acquisition as an end game. It’s a new chapter.
Business leaders and employees in many organizations have demonstrated time and again that they are quite good at adapting to an ever-changing competitive landscape. A few years ago, we undertook a company-wide shift from on-premises software to cloud-first. There was short-term disruption but long-term advantage. It’s important to develop an organizational mindset that thrives on change and transformation, so when the time comes, you’re ready for these big steps.
So, even as we take pride in all that we accomplished to get to this point, we now begin to take on a fresh identity as part of a larger whole. It’s an opportunity to engage new colleagues and flourish professionally. And importantly, customers will be the beneficiaries of these new collaborations and synergies. On the day Informatica was welcomed into the Salesforce family and ecosystem, I shared my feeling that “the best is yet to come.” That’s my North Star and one I recommend to every business leader forging ahead into an M&A evolution — because the truest measure of success ultimately will be what we accomplish next.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Homebuyers may experience a reprieve in 2026 as price normalization and an increase in home sales over the next year will take some pressure off the market—but don’t expect homebuying to be affordable in the short run for Gen Z and young families.
The “Great Housing Reset” will start next year, with income growth outpacing home-price growth for a prolonged period for the first time since the Great Recession era, according to a Redfin report released this week.
The residential real estate brokerage sees mortgage rates in the low-6% range, down from down from the 2025 average of 6.6%; a median home sales price increase of just 1%, down from 2% this year; and monthly housing payments growth that will lag behind wage growth, which will remain steady at 4%.
These trends toward increased affordability will likely bring back some house hunters to the market, but many Gen Zers and young families will opt for nontraditional living situations, according to the report.
More adult children will be living with their parents, as households continue to shift further away from a nuclear family structure, Redfin predicted.
“Picture a garage that’s converted into a second primary suite for adult children moving back in with their parents,” the report’s authors wrote. “Redfin agents in places like Los Angeles and Nashville say more homeowners are planning to tailor their homes to share with extended family.”
Gen Z and millennial homeownership rates plateaued last year, with no improvement expected. Just over one-quarter of Gen Zers owned their home in 2024, while the rate for millennial owners was 54.9% in the same year.
Meanwhile, about 6% of Americans who struggled to afford housing as of mid-2025 moved back in with their parents, while another 6% moved in with roommates. Both trends are expected to increase in 2026, according to the report.
Obstacles to home affordability
Despite factors that could increase affordability for prospective homebuyers, C. Scott Schwefel, a real estate attorney at Shipman, Shaiken & Schwefel, LLC, told Fortune that income growth and home-price growth are just a few keys to sustainable homeownership.
An improved income-to-price ratio is welcome, but unless tax bills stabilize, many households may not experience a net relief, Schwefel said.
“Prospective buyers need to recognize that affordability is not just price versus income…it’s price, mortgage rate and the annual bill for living in a place—and that bill includes property taxes,” he added.
In November, voters—especially young ones—showed lowering housing costs is their priority, the report said. But they also face high sale prices and mortgage rates, inflated insurance premiums, and potential utility costs hikes due to a data center construction boom that’s driving up energy bills. The report’s authors expect there to be a bipartisan push to help remedy the housing affordability crisis.
Still, an affordable housing market for first-time home buyers and young families still may be far away.
“The U.S. housing market should be considered moving from frozen to thawing,” Sergio Altomare, CEO of Hearthfire Holdings, a real estate private equity and development company, told Fortune.
“Prices aren’t surging, but they’re no longer falling,” he added. “We are beginning to unlock some activity that’s been trapped for a couple of years.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang doesn’t foresee a sudden spike of AI-related layoffs, but that doesn’t mean the technology won’t drastically change the job market—or even create new roles like robot tailors.
The jobs that will be the most resistant to AI’s creeping effect will be those that consist of more than just routine tasks, Huang said during an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan this week.
“If your job is just to chop vegetables, Cuisinart’s gonna replace you,” Huang said.
On the other hand, some jobs, such as radiologists, may be safe because their role isn’t just about taking scans, but rather interpreting those images to diagnose people.
“The image studying is simply a task in service of diagnosing the disease,” he said.
Huang allowed that some jobs will indeed go away, although he stopped short of using the drastic language from others like Geoffrey Hinton a.k.a. “the Godfather of AI” and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, both of whom have previously predicted massive unemployment thanks to the improvement of AI tools.
Yet, the potential, AI-dominated job market Huang imagines may also add some new jobs, he theorized. This includes the possibility that there will be a newfound demand for technicians to help build and maintain future AI assistants, Huang said, but also other industries that are harder to imagine.
“You’re gonna have robot apparel, so a whole industry of—isn’t that right? Because I want my robot to look different than your robot,” Huang said. “So you’re gonna have a whole apparel industry for robots.”
The idea of AI-powered robots dominating jobs once held by humans may sound like science fiction, and yet some of the world’s most important tech companies are already trying to make it a reality.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made the company’s Optimus robot a central tenet of its future business strategy. Just last month, Musk predicted money will no longer exist in the future and work will be optional within the next 10 to 20 years thanks to a fully fledged robotic workforce.
AI is also advancing so rapidly that it already has the potential to replace millions of jobs. AI can adequately complete work equating to about 12% of U.S. jobs, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report from last month. This represents about 151 million workers representing more than $1 trillion in pay, which is on the hook thanks to potential AI disruption, according to the study.
Even Huang’s potentially new job of AI robot clothesmaker may not last. When asked by Rogan whether robots could eventually make apparel for other robots, Huang replied: “Eventually. And then there’ll be something else.”
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