OpenAI is entering its pre-IPO phase with a new power structure. President and co-founder Greg Brockman—despite holding an unchanged title for years—has now become the company’s de facto operator on a day-to-day operational level.
The expansion of Brockman’s authority has unfolded alongside a string of high-level departures. Over the year, OpenAI has lost former COO Brad Lightcap, Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser, and a series of key figures such as Sora lead Bill Peebles and Vice President of Science Kevin Weil. When AGI CEO Fidji Simo went on leave, Brockman took over the entire product division; a subsequent reorganization also handed him the “scaling” branch, granting him control over virtually all commercial operations.
The clearest signal of Brockman’s role lies in one detail: when Dresser departed last week, the spokesperson in the press release was Brockman, not CEO Sam Altman.
Analysts interpret this development through a revenue-driven lens. OpenAI is focusing resources on consumer products and hardware to differentiate itself from Anthropic rather than merely competing in the enterprise sector, and Brockman—whose core strength lies in “productizing” research—is seen as the right fit for the task. This is an assessment by external experts and has not been confirmed by OpenAI.
So what: when a company preparing to go public consolidates power in a figure responsible for “scaling products,” the market should interpret it as a bet on faster revenue growth. The trade-off to consider is leadership stability—something public market investors typically scrutinize closely before committing capital.