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OpenAI’s CTO for B2B Applications, Srinivas Narayanan, will step down next week, citing personal reasons and timing after key product launches. His exit comes alongside other senior departures and restructuring, as the company shuts some divisions and shifts focus toward core products, enterprise growth and streamlined operations.

Srinivas Narayanan, Chief Technology Officer for B2B Applications at OpenAI, is leaving the company at the end of next week, and by his own account, the timing was deliberate. In a post shared on X, Narayanan said that recent and upcoming product launches made this 'the right time to step back,' suggesting he saw his chapter at the company as naturally complete rather than abruptly cut short. Having shepherded the company's enterprise engineering efforts through a period of explosive growth, his exit appears to be one of transition rather than conflict.

Narayanan also cited a personal reason - a desire to spend time with his ageing parents in India before deciding what comes next professionally. The IIT Madras alumnus, who has been based in San Francisco, described his three-year stint as 'an incredible journey that felt more like ten', a phrase that speaks as much to the pace of OpenAI's growth as it does to his own sense of fulfilment. For Narayanan, it seems, the mission was accomplished.

Narayan's journey at OpenAI

Narayanan joined OpenAI in April 2023 as Vice President of Engineering and was elevated to CTO of B2B Applications in September 2025. In that time, he led the engineering teams behind some of the company's most consequential products, including ChatGPT and the developer API platform. He recalled building the Applied Engineering team from roughly 40 people on a single floor at OpenAI's 575 office into a division that helped ship what he called 'some of the fastest-growing products in history.'