Meet Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI's New Chief Scientist After Ilya Sutskever's Exit: Sam Altman Hails Him As 'One Of The Greatest Minds Of Our Generation'

Jakub Pachocki is OpenAI's new chief scientist, taking over from Ilya Sutskever who has left the company he co-founded after several months of controversies.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described Pachocki as "easily one of the greatest minds of our generation."

But who is Pachocki, the man in charge of research at the world's largest AI startup?

Cut From The Same Cloth As Ilya

Pachocki has been the Research Director at the Microsoft Corp.-backed MSFT OpenAI since 2017 and Altman says he has "run many of our most important projects."

Although Sutskever has maintained silence since his failed "palace coup" against Altman in November, Pachocki taking over the reins might not be all that different.

See Also: Sam Altman Laughs Off Speculation About OpenAI’s Ilya Sutskever’s Whereabouts: ‘I Really Hope We Work Together For…Rest Of My Career’

OpenAI's new chief scientist calls Sutskever his mentor. "Ilya introduced me to the world of deep learning research, and has been a mentor to me, and a great collaborator for many years," he said.

Ilya introduced me to the world of deep learning research, and has been a mentor to me, and a great collaborator for many years. His incredible vision for what deep learning could become was foundational to what OpenAI, and the field of AI, is today. I am deeply grateful to him… https://t.co/nsbMIOZHpS

— Jakub Pachocki (@merettm) May 14, 2024

Pachocki holds a PhD in theoretical computer science from the Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests during his university days were designing algorithms for machine learning applications.

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Born In Poland, Pachocki Won Several Competitions

Pachocki, born in Poland, participated in several hacking competitions during his university days. According to his profile on "Computing Programming Hall of Fame," Pachocki bagged several medals in competitive programming competitions, including those run by Meta Platforms Inc.'s Facebook, and Alphabet Inc.'s Google.

His biggest win was Google Code Jam 2012, where he topped the charts and won the gold medal as well as $10,000 prize money.

Pachocki Supported Altman During The November Crisis

Pachocki was among the 747 out of 770 OpenAI employees who backed Altman during the November crisis when Sutskever, along with then-director Helen Toner, launched a "palace coup" against Altman.

This is despite the fact that Pachocki was recruited and mentored by Sutskever. With that said, both have posted heartfelt messages to each other after Sutskever resigned from OpenAI.

Pachocki has been effectively leading OpenAI's research efforts since November, given his previous position as the Research Director. This also comes two days after OpenAI launched GPT-4o, a new update that combines different input modals like text, audio, and vision.

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Photos courtesy: Simons Institute and Stanford University