Inside OpenAI: An Off-the-Record Fireside with Joy Jiao
This is a candid, off-record fireside with Yunxin (“Joy”) Jiao—an OpenAI research engineer—on what it’s been like behind the scenes the last four years: the run-up to ChatGPT, and its aftermath while growing as an engineer at the AI × science frontier. In this session, she’ll share what she personally observed and learned—what shaped her craft, how she manages pressure and visibility, and how she thinks about her own future in the field.
Example Topics
Joy’s path into AI and why the AI × science intersection clicked for her
How Joy’s day-to-day work and habits evolved pre- vs. post-ChatGPT (from her vantage point)
Joy’s strategies for handling intense work cycles and external attention (“rocket fuel” & guardrails)
How Joy copes with the “fame tax”: staying focused amid media noise and rumors
What org shifts meant for Joy’s role (what changed in her workflow; what didn’t)
Joy’s takeaways from launches she worked on or followed: skills that helped, mistakes she won’t repeat
How Joy is thinking about her own next 12–24 months: learning goals, research interests, career heuristics
Off-record / Chatham House Rule. Insights may be used, but no attribution or identity sharing outside the room.
Joy will be speaking in a personal capacity and not an OpenAI spokesperson
There’s no recording, streaming, or public distribution allowed.
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Speaker Bios:
Joy Jiao is a researcher at OpenAI, working on AI alignment and safety with a focus on accelerating scientific discovery and biological research. She earned her PhD in Systems Biology at Harvard University. At OpenAI, she contributed to embedding models, search, and memory; and previously worked on machine learning infrastructure at Quora and advertising systems at Google.
Moderator: Tobi Adamolekun is the founder of TADA, a San-Francisco design studio operating at the intersection of architecture, interior design, real-estate development, and art installations. His work spans the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa, drawing on formative experience at Zaha Hadid Architects in London. In addition to practice, Tobi has helped launch mission-driven creative spaces in SF—such as the women-only workspace Radiant—and serves in cultural and youth-sport leadership roles locally.