Meet Mira Murati, who rejected Mark Zuckerberg’s Rs 75000000000 offer to join Meta AI, was former…

An Albanian-American tech visionary, Mira Murati, has made significant visionary breakthroughs in the field of Artificial Intelligence. She has got the spotlight once again – this time turning down an eye-watering $1 billion from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Mira has become one of the most influential figures in the global AI race, after being a former CTO of OpenAI and the founder of AI startup Thinking Machines Lab.

Her team’s unanimous rejection of this huge offer from Meta speaks how her leadership is and how the team trusts the startup in the long run.

Who is genius mind behind ChatGPT?

Before launching the thinking machines lab, Mira Murati was the former CTO of open AI, one of the most advanced AI companies in the world. Her role was quite pivotal as she was involved in the development of ground of the ground breaking

Tech technologies like ChatGPT, Dall-E and Codex. These systems have completely transformed how the people interact with artificial intelligence.

The work she has done has helped a lot in generative AI into the mainstream media, which has parked a global wave of innovation across various industries, vary from education and healthcare to design and coding. Marathi was not a technical leader, but also strategic visionary. She emphasise the importance of safety alignment and responsible development all along while pulling the organisation to think deeply about the societal impact of powerful AI systems.

She even earned the of being the “AI brain” behind the company’s most ambitious projects, and was praised for how calm and focused she was. Her ability to guide multidisciplinary teams is also considered great, and the way she has combined engineering precision with human centred thinking has set the stage for her next bold move, which was founding her own AI company.

She also delivered a keynote at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

She warned that “AI without values is intelligence without conscience,” sparking international dialogue on AI ethics and sovereignty, and has been advising the European Commission on emerging AI regulatory frameworks, which is quite rare coming from a startup founder.

Does the startup have a billion-dollar belief?

Founded early in 2025, Thinking Machines Lav emerged rapidly as one of the most watched AI startups. Though, it has not launched any product yet, the company has recently raised an astonishing $2 billion seed round, at a valuation of $12 billion. The startup’s goal is to create a customisable, interpretable and widely accessible AI system, capable of redefining the whole landscape of the industry. Insiders say the company’s stealth mode only adds to its mystique and with Murati at the helm, expectations are higher than ever for what comes next.

Why did her team say no?

According to a Wired report, Meta offered some of Murati’s team members compensation packages ranging from $200 million-$1 billion. Just to join it’s newly launched Superintelligence Lab, but every single offer was turned down by the team members. The sources say that the Thinking Machines Lab team believes their equity in the start-up has the potential to be worth quite more than what they are getting at Meta.They choose the values, the independence and Murati‘s vision over the big tech paychecks they were offered.

In a tech industry where these massive paydays often drive important decisions. The loyalty displayed by the team stands out the way they have rejected Meta’s lucrative offers highlights how much they believe in the startup’s mission and long term potential. It is also noted by many observers that the chance to help shape AI’s future from the ground up without the constraints of a corporate giant is quite a rare and meaningful opportunity, one that Murati has worked very hard to create.

A significant name in the AI’s future?

Miya Murati leadership has been recognised worldwide already. The way she was featured in Time’s 100 Most Influential People in AI (2024) and Fortune’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Business (2023). With Thinking Machines Lab gaining momentum and Meta’s billion-dollar offers rejected, Murati has solidified her place in the industry, but not just as a builder of AI, but as a shaper of its future.

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