Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, has become an enigma in the AI world with her new venture, Thinking Machines Lab (TML). Launched in February 2025, TML reportedly closed a staggering $2 billion seed round, placing its valuation between $10 billion and $12 billion before announcing a flagship product.
The Albanian-born engineer, who briefly served as OpenAI’s interim CEO during the November 2023 turmoil, leveraged her experience leading ChatGPT and DALL·E to secure backing from giants like Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, AMD, and Cisco. The Albanian government even took a symbolic stake.
The "enigma" lies in this rapid, high-stakes valuation for a company still largely in stealth mode. It is a major vote of confidence in Murati's leadership and vision, rather than a response to proven market traction.
Adding to the intrigue is TML's unique governance structure, which grants Murati a deciding vote and gives founding shareholders 100x voting weight, ensuring she maintains control. She also successfully recruited top researchers from competing labs, including OpenAI co-founder John Schulman as Chief Scientist.
Positioned as a public benefit corporation focused on ethical, human-aligned AI, TML signals a deliberate divergence from the pure-scale focus of other Big Tech players. The next 12–18 months will reveal whether TML intends to compete directly with OpenAI or focus on next-generation tooling and safety platforms.
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