BREAKING
OpenAI Adds Shazeer and Ball Before IPO
Two Marquee Hires
1Shazeer joins AI dev
↓
2Ball leads Strategic Futures
↓
3Reports to CSO Jason Kwon
Different Backgrounds, Same Goal
Noam ShazeerFrom Google
●Gemini co-lead
●Co-authored Transformer paper
●Joins AI development
Dean BallEffective July 6
●Former WH AI policy
●Leads Strategic Futures
●Focus on catastrophic risk
0B
Post-money valuation
0T+
Possible IPO target
0B
2024 Character.AI deal
S-1 Filed June 8, 2026
Talent War Heats Up
AI NEWS BLITZ
OpenAI is bringing in two big names as it gears up for a public listing.