OpenAI's former CTO, Mira Murati, debuted her new startup, Thinking Machine Labs, last week.The startup is aiming to raise $1 billion at a roughly $9 billion valuation, according to sources familiar with the matter.A spokesperson for Murati declined to comment. Mira Murati's new startup, Thinking Machine Labs, is aiming to raise a $1 billion funding round at a roughly $9 billion valuation, sources familiar with the matter told Business Insider.The round is still in progress, and details could change. A spokesperson for Murati declined to comment.A $9 billion valuation is unusually high for a startup less than a year old, but investors have been eager to back AI startups, especially those founded by former OpenAI employees. Murati previously spent six and a half years at OpenAI, where she served as CTO, working on the development of ChatGPT and other AI research initiatives. She was briefly appointed interim CEO in November 2023 after OpenAI's board abruptly fired Sam Altman, a move that sparked turmoil within the company. After Altman's reinstatement as CEO, Murati resumed her role as CTO.vWhat exactly Murati would do after leaving OpenAI last year has been a favorite Silicon Valley parlor game in recent months, with few details until the company emerged from stealth last week.In a blog post, Murati positioned the startup as an artificial intelligence research and product lab focused on making AI more accessible."To bridge the gaps, we're building Thinking Machines Lab to make AI systems more widely understood, customizable and generally capable," Murati wrote.Murati has recruited a long list of engineers and AI researchers from her former employer, OpenAI, and Meta and Anthropic. Several of Murati's former coworkers, including John Schulman, who co-led the creation of ChatGPT; Jonathan Lachman, formerly the head of special projects at OpenAI; Barret Zoph, co-creator of ChatGPT; and Alexander Kirillov, who worked closely with Murati on ChatGPT's voice mode, are also working at Thinking Machines Lab.Murati is one of a handful of former OpenAI executives who have gone on to launch their own companies. Former OpenAI chief scientist and cofounder Ilya Sutskever left the company in May 2024 and started Safe Superintelligence Inc. soon after leaving. Dario and Daniela Amodei also worked at OpenAI and founded Anthropic in 2021.