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The $2B Mira Murati Mystery

With stratospheric funding and a slew of founding talent from OpenAI, Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab seemingly had everything an A.I. startup needed for escape velocity. But as it approaches its 15-month mark, the company has little to show for all that promise and capital.

Mira Murati
If the hyperscalers ever started to view Thinking Machines as a real threat, it’s hard to imagine that OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic couldn’t ship something similar before Murati’s model had a chance to catch on. Photo: Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED
Ian Krietzberg
May 21, 2026

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When former OpenAI C.T.O. Mira Murati launched Thinking Machines Lab, in February 2025, she made a helluva splash in Silicon Valley. Not only had Murati left OpenAI to set up the foundations of a seemingly legit competitor, but she’d become a talent magnet in the midst of a highly competitive battle for engineers. More importantly, she quickly raised $2 billion in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Jane Street, Google Ventures, and Nvidia, that valued the company at $12 billion.