Overview
- CEO Sam Altman publicly announced the executive opening, calling it a "stressful" role where the hire will "jump into the deep end" immediately.
- The San Francisco–based position pays $555,000 plus equity and sits within OpenAI’s Safety Systems team.
- The leader will execute the Preparedness framework by building capability evaluations, threat models, and scalable mitigations across cyber, biosecurity, mental‑health, and self‑improving system risks, coordinating across research, product, policy, governance, and external partners.
- Altman said models are beginning to find critical computer‑security vulnerabilities and that 2025 offered a preview of potential mental‑health harms.
- The role refills a gap dating to mid‑2024 after Aleksander Madry’s reassignment and later departures from the preparedness group, during a period of intensifying legal and reputational scrutiny.