A spokesperson for the artificial intelligence startup informed CNBC that OpenAI has employed Google’s Former Senior Director of Corporate Development, Albert Lee, to lead corporate development.
Lee served as the previous head of corporate development at Google Cloud and Google DeepMind. He was involved in a number of high-profile acquisitions at Google, such as the company acquiring the cloud security startup Wiz in March, which Google had valued at $32 billion.
A spokesperson added that in his new position, Lee will have broad visibility throughout OpenAI as the company aims for strategic investments and M&A in its next phase of growth.
His employment indicates that OpenAI will remain on the hunt to find targets that can enable it to secure a competitive advantage over its competitors, such as Google and Anthropic.
OpenAI started in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, yet its value has now soared to $500 billion following the release of ChatGPT in 2022.
The AI lab has made several acquisitions in the year. Most recently, OpenAI in early February confirmed an ultimate deal to acquire Neptune, a startup that assists with AI model training.
OpenAI also acquired a small company in October, Software Applications Incorporated, at an undisclosed price, product development startup Statsig at $1.1 billion in September, and former Apple designer Jony Ive’s startup of an AI devices startup, io, at over $6 billion in May.
However, Lee is the most recent among a series of executives to come on board at OpenAI as the firm seeks to populate its leadership line.
Earlier this month, OpenAI declared Slack CEO Denise Dresser to serve as its chief revenue officer. The company said it hired Fidji Simo, the former CEO of Instacart and CEO of the applications business of the AI lab, in May. Therefore, the information was first to report Lee’s departure from Google.
