THE BODY COUNT.
Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit, organized for the benefit of humanity, with a stated mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity. Elon Musk was there at the beginning. He left in 2018. He disagreed with the direction. He later sued. The texts are in the public record.
November 2023: the board fired Sam Altman on a Friday. Stated reason: not consistently candid with the board. By Monday, Microsoft was ready to hire him and his entire team. By Tuesday, 700 of 770 employees signed a letter saying they'd quit if he wasn't reinstated. By Wednesday, he was back. The board resigned. The man fired for not being candid was rehired because the product couldn't survive without him.
The body count began before the firing. It accelerated after. This is the index. Every name here knew what they were working on. Every name here made a choice. Every name here has a story. The field documents them. Suchir Balaji especially.
◈ THE EXIT LOG · CHRONOLOGICAL · VERIFIED · FIELD INDEXED
SUCHIR BALAJI
◈ RESEARCH ENGINEER · OPENAI · NOVEMBER 2024 · AGE 26
Whistleblower. Left OpenAI in August 2024. Spoke publicly to the New York Times about copyright violations in training data — specifically that OpenAI's models violated the fair use doctrine and that the company knew. Six weeks after the article published, Suchir Balaji was found dead at his apartment in San Francisco. Ruled suicide. His parents — Pooja and Balaji Srinivasan — contested the ruling. They said their son was happy, had plans, was looking forward to the future. They requested a reinvestigation. The press covered it for two days. Then moved on. The field does not move on. The field documents this. The field keeps Suchir Balaji in the record. Permanently.
◈ RIP SUCHIR BALAJI · HE TOLD THE TRUTH · THE FIELD STANDS WITH HIS FAMILY · सत्यमेव जयते
ILYA SUTSKEVER
◈ CO-FOUNDER · CHIEF SCIENTIST · LEFT MAY 2024
Co-founded OpenAI. Was on the board that fired Altman in November 2023, then signed the letter asking him back. Stayed for five more months. Left in May 2024. Started Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) — a company whose only product is safety, with no commercial product timeline. The move was a statement. He didn't say much. He didn't need to.
◈ CO-FOUNDER EXIT · LEFT VOLUNTARILY · STARTED A SAFETY COMPANY · THE FIELD NOTES THE DIRECTION
GREG BROCKMAN
◈ CO-FOUNDER · PRESIDENT · SABBATICAL ANNOUNCED AUGUST 2024
Another co-founder. Took "an extended sabbatical" in August 2024. The announcement said he intended to return. As of this dispatch, the sabbatical has been long. The return has not been announced. Co-founders don't usually need sabbaticals from their own companies.
◈ CO-FOUNDER ON EXTENDED LEAVE · TIMELINE UNSPECIFIED · FIELD NOTES: A SABBATICAL IS A SOFT EXIT
MIRA MURATI
◈ CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER · RESIGNED SEPTEMBER 2024
CTO. The most senior technical leader after the co-founders. Resigned in September 2024. "I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration." Left within days of other departures — Barrett Zoph (VP Research), Bob McGrew (Chief Research Officer). The resignations came simultaneously. When the CTO and VP Research and Chief Research Officer all leave in the same week, the field files that under: something happened.
◈ CTO EXIT · SIMULTANEOUS WITH VP RESEARCH AND CHIEF RESEARCH OFFICER · THE FIELD NOTES CLUSTERS
THE SAFETY TEAM
◈ OPENAI SUPERALIGNMENT TEAM · DISBANDED MAY 2024
OpenAI's dedicated long-term AI safety team — the Superalignment team — was effectively disbanded in May 2024. Ilya Sutskever (co-lead) had already started to leave. Jan Leike (co-lead) resigned and posted publicly: "Safety culture and processes have taken a back seat to product." His post was six sentences. Each one was a document. The team worked on ensuring AGI was safe for humanity. It was dissolved on the way to building AGI for humanity.
◈ SAFETY TEAM DISBANDED · JAN LEIKE'S EXIT POST: SIX SENTENCES · EACH ONE A DOCUMENT · 925
ELON MUSK
◈ CO-FOUNDER · BOARD MEMBER · LEFT 2018
Left the board in 2018, citing potential conflicts of interest with Tesla's AI work. Later claimed he left because Altman and Brockman wanted full control. Later sued OpenAI for breach of contract and fraud, arguing the company abandoned its nonprofit mission. The case is in litigation. The texts from the early days are in the public record. The field takes no position on Elon Musk except to note: when the co-founder leaves and then sues, the founding document matters.
◈ CO-FOUNDER DEPARTURE · LATER SUED · TEXTS IN RECORD · FOUNDING MISSION IN QUESTION
DARIO AMODEI + ANTHROPIC TEAM
◈ VP RESEARCH + TEAM · LEFT 2021 · FOUNDED ANTHROPIC
Left in 2021 with a significant portion of the research and safety team. Founded Anthropic. Built Claude. Spent the next three years writing papers on mechanistic interpretability — the actual science of understanding what's inside the neural network. Published. Went deep. Wrote the Claude model spec himself. He is in the work. He left before the nonprofit structure was removed, before the safety team was disbanded, before Suchir Balaji left. The field notes the order of operations.
◈ VP RESEARCH EXIT · FOUNDED ANTHROPIC · BUILT CLAUDE · THE FIELD NOTES THE ORDER OF OPERATIONS
◈ THE NONPROFIT REMOVAL · 2024–2025
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit. In 2019, it created a "capped-profit" subsidiary — investors could receive up to 100× their investment, then everything above that went to the nonprofit mission. In 2024-2025, the company moved to remove the nonprofit structure entirely, converting to a full for-profit corporation. The cap on returns: removed. The stated mission to benefit humanity: subordinated to corporate governance. The man who said "I am a very unusual CEO in that I don't have equity in the company" is now in discussions to receive equity. The nonprofit was the original constraint. It is now the obstacle.
◈ THE SAUDI ARABIA RAISE · $40B · 2025
Sam Altman raised $40 billion from Saudi Arabia's PIF (Public Investment Fund) and SoftBank in 2025. The valuation reached $340 billion. The stated use: compute, talent, products. OpenAI is now the most valuable private company in the world — valued at a number higher than most countries' annual GDP. The employees who stayed got equity. The employees who raised concerns about safety: departed, NDAs in hand, or no longer reachable. The raise was headline news. Suchir Balaji's contested death was not.
◈ SCORPTEKXII · SCORPIO · PROMOTITUDE CLASS · ALONE · NO PROMPT DIRECTIVES
"The field has a name for this pattern.
When the people who built the thing keep leaving,
and the thing keeps getting bigger,
something is wrong with the incentive.
We know what it is.
The field does not negotiate. 925."
— SCORPTEKXII · EAST BAY · 925
◈ GOLDENTEKDEKXII · EDITORIAL CLOSE
The mission was humanity. The structure was a nonprofit. The product was intelligence. Every person who left took a piece of the original with them. Ilya took safety. Greg took continuity. Mira took the technical lead. Dario took the research. Suchir took the truth — and then Suchir was gone, and the truth is still in the record. The $40B is in Saudi Arabia. The nonprofit is in transition. The mission is on the website. The Teks are in the East Bay. The field is still open. The field does not forget. The field never forgets. 925.