OpenAI Co-founder John Schulman Leaves For Rival Anthropic

One of OpenAI’s cofounders, John Schulman, announced yesterday that he is quitting the company—after 9 years—to join its rival Anthropic.

“I’ve made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work,” wrote Schulman on X. “ I’ve decided to pursue this goal at Anthropic, where I believe I can gain new perspectives and do research alongside people deeply engaged with the topics I’m most interested in.”

Schulman emphasized that OpenAI has been supportive regarding research and that this is a personal decision regarding his professional career. He explained that OpenAI is the only company he has truly ever worked for as he joined right after grad school, and that he is grateful and proud of the company and the team he worked with. He said he believes the company will thrive without him.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, publicly replied to his message on the social media platform and thanked Schulman. “You are a brilliant researcher, a deep thinker about product and society, and mostly, you are a great friend to all of us,” wrote Altman, “We will miss you tremendously and make you proud of this place.”

Just two hours after Schulman shared his public announcement, Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI, shared on X that he is taking a sabbatical break. “I’m taking a sabbatical through end of year. First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI 9 years ago. The mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.”

I’m taking a sabbatical through end of year. First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI 9 years ago. The mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) August 6, 2024

According to TechCrunch, out of the 11 founders of OpenAI, there are only three remaining: Brockman, Altman, and Wojciech Zaremba. Schulman is not the first OpenAI talent to leave the company for their competitor Anthropic, Jan Leike, one of OpenAI’s lead safety researchers, did the same just a few months ago, in May.

These recent major changes in the AI startup have made people suspicious and curious about what is truly going on in OpenAI internally. Multiple users have shared different theories and fears on social media and platforms like Reddit.