Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles exit OpenAI as company continues to shed ‘side quests’

Intelligence report synthesized for precision. Verified source updates below.
Detailed Report
The first StrictlyVC of 2026 hits SF on April 30. Tickets are going fast. Register now.
Save up to $680 on your Disrupt 2026 pass. Ends 11:59 p.m. PT tonight. REGISTER NOW.
Image Credits:Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images AI
Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles exit OpenAI as company continues to shed ‘side quests’
Rebecca Bellan
1:38 PM PDT · April 17, 2026
OpenAI is losing two of the architects of its most ambitious moonshots. Kevin Weil, who led the company’s science research initiative, and Bill Peebles, the researcher behind AI video tool Sora, both announced their departures on Friday. The exits come as OpenAI consolidates around enterprise AI and its forthcoming “superapp.”
The departures follow OpenAI’s decision to cut back on “side quests,” including customer-facing bets like Sora and OpenAI for Science. Sora, which was losing an estimated $1 million per day in compute costs, was shut down last month.
OpenAI for Science was the internal research group behind Prism, an AI-powered platform that promised to accelerate scientific discovery. It’s being absorbed into “other research teams,” according to Weil’s social media post announcing the news.
“It’s been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science,” Weil wrote. “Accelerating science will be one of the most stunningly positive outcomes of our push to AGI.”
The team had a short and bumpy road after its formal announcement in October 2025. Weil deleted a tweet claiming GPT-5 had solved 10 previously unsolved Erdős mathematical problems, but that claim fell apart immediately when the mathematician who runs the website erdosproblems.com called it out.
Weil’s departure comes a day after his team released GPT-Rosalind, a new model to accelerate life sciences research and drug discovery.
In a social media post announcing his departure, Peebles credited Sora with igniting a “huge amount of investment in video across the industry,” and argued that the kind of research that produced the video tool requires space away from the company’s mainline roadmap.
“Cultivating entropy is the only way for a research lab to thrive long-term,” he wrote.
OpenAI is also losing Srinivas Narayanan, its chief technology officer of enterprise applications, Wired reports. Narayanan reportedly announced the news internally that he was leaving to spend more time with family.
This article was updated to include the departure of Srinivas Narayanan.
Rebecca Bellan
Senior Reporter
Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications.
You can contact or verify outreach from Rebecca by emailing rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at rebeccabellan.491 on Signal.
April 30 San Francisco, CA StrictlyVC kicks off the year in SF. Get in the room for unfiltered fireside chats with industry leaders, insider VC insights, and high-value connections that actually move the needle. Tickets are limited.
Most Popular
Anthropic launches Claude Design, a new product for creating quick visuals
Aisha Malik
Anthropic CPO leaves Figma’s board after reports he will offer a competing product
Tim Fernholz
After sale of its shoe business, Allbirds pivots to AI
Sarah Perez
An Amazon warehouse worker died on the job at Oregon facility
Amanda Silberling
OpenAI has bought AI personal finance startup Hiro
Julie Bort
Stanford report highlights growing disconnect between AI insiders and everyone else
Sarah Perez
Sam Altman responds to ‘incendiary’ New Yorker article after attack on his home
Anthony Ha



