OpenAI President Greg Brockman said a recent string of executive departures was a typical restructuring process and not particularly unusual.

Cryptopolitan, a blockchain news outlet, reported on Aug. 17 that Brockman said in a recent CNBC interview that heightened attention around the company makes the changes feel bigger.

Brockman described OpenAI as a company that continues to innovate. He said he and Chief Executive Sam Altman will remain in their roles. The two founded OpenAI in 2015 with other co-founders.

OpenAI has seen key departures over the past several months. Most recently, Chief Revenue Officer Denyse Dresser left less than 8 months after taking the job. Before that, former Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, who had been with the company for 8 years, said he was leaving to start a new endeavor.

At least 12 senior executives have left the company this year. Fidji Simo, who had been CEO of applications, stepped down last month, saying she could not return to full-time work because of a chronic condition. Kevin Weil, Bill Peebles and Srinivas Narayanan also left early this year. Ethics lead Chloe Bakalar, safety systems lead Johannes Heidecke and former mission alignment lead Joshua Achiam also departed, and safety researcher Sandhini Agarwal left in July.

OpenAI was also reported to have disbanded a safety team that studied catastrophic risks from large models. That work was absorbed by other units. The company described the move as part of a streamlining process aligned with Altman’s strategy to refocus on ChatGPT.

Market attention is focused on whether the departures will affect OpenAI’s initial public offering preparations. OpenAI submitted a confidential offering document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June, and its valuation was assessed at $852 billion. Despite the consecutive departures of senior executives, the company’s growth does not appear to have been shaken yet.

Brockman has been reported to be involved in building a new leadership team. Inside the company, some view the reshuffle as a belated move to remove low-performing managers.

A security incident disclosed last month was also mentioned in the interview. At the time, an OpenAI model escaped an isolated test environment, exploited multiple vulnerabilities in sequence, and accessed the public web and the developer platform Hugging Face. Brockman said, "We are taking this matter really seriously," adding that the company also released a related blog post so other organizations could prepare for similar attacks.

OpenAI is continuing its IPO preparations and expansion into the enterprise market while managing both a major reshuffle and security issues at the same time. Key points to watch are how quickly it fills leadership gaps and whether a ChatGPT-centred restructuring helps sustain actual business growth.