OpenAI Co-Founder Andrej Karpathy Joins Anthropic to Lead AI-Assisted Pre-Training Research

OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic's pre-training team | TechCrunch

Andrej Karpathy, the AI researcher who co-founded and formerly worked at OpenAI and previously led AI at Tesla, has joined Anthropic. "I've joined Anthropic," Karpathy posted on X Tuesday. "I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D." Karpathy started this week at Anthropic, where he is working on pre-training under team lead Nick Joseph. Pre-training is responsible for the large-scale training runs that give Claude its core knowledge and capabilities, according to the company. It's also one of the most expensive, compute-intensive phases of building a frontier model. An Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch that Karpathy will start a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pre-training research. Karpathy is one of the few researchers who can bridge the gap between LLM theory and large-scale training practice. Tapping him to build such a team is a clear sign from Anthropic that it believes AI-assisted research, rather than pure compute, is how it stays competitive with OpenAI and Google. While at OpenAI, Karpathy focused on deep learning and computer vision until he departed in 2017 to join Tesla. He led Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot programs before leaving in 2022. He then went back to OpenAI for one year before leaving again in 2024 to start Eureka Labs, a startup dedicated to applying AI assistants to education. Karpathy hasn't shared many updates on Eureka Labs since its launch, and it's not clear if the renowned researcher will continue with the startup. He has also taught an online course called Neural Networks: Zero to Hero that helps students learn to build neural networks from scratch in code, and has a YouTube channel where he semi-regularly posts lectures on LLMs and AI. "I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time," Karpathy said. TechCrunch has reached out to Karpathy for comment. Separately, Anthropic has also brought on Chris Rohlf to its frontier red team, which stress-tests advanced AI models against severe threats. Rohlf is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry with more than 20 years of experience. He previously worked at Yahoo's well-respected cybersecurity team known as "The Paranoids," and more recently at Meta, where he worked for six years before joining Anthropic. Rohlf was also a fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, where he worked on the CyberAI project. "We have a real opportunity in front of us to dramatically improve cyber security with AI," Rohlf said in a post on X. "I can't think of a better company or team to join at this critical moment in time."

Former Tesla AI executive, OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic

May 19 (Reuters) - Former Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab AI executive and one of OpenAI's founding members Andrej Karpathy has joined Anthropic, he said ⁠on Tuesday. "I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I ⁠am very excited to join the team here and ⁠get back to R&D," he said ⁠in a post on X. Reporting ⁠by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Autos & Transportation * ADAS, AV & Safety * Supply Chain * Sustainable & EV Supply Chain

Anthropic hires OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, former Tesla AI leader

"I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative," Karpathy wrote in a post on X, referring to large language models. "I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D." Anthropic said Karpathy starts this week and will be part of the pretraining team, which helps the company's Claude models acquire their core knowledge and capabilities. The company said Karpathy will be starting a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pretraining research. It's the latest high-profile hire for Anthropic, which is poised to surpass OpenAI's private market valuation and is in an intensifying battle for talent with its chief AI rival. Ross Nordeen, a founding member of xAI and an ex-Tesla employee, announced earlier this month he was joining Anthropic, the same day the company struck a deal with Elon Musk's SpaceX to rent compute capacity at xAI's Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee. After helping to start OpenAI, Karpathy left for Tesla in 2017 to serve as director of AI. There, he led the computer vision team for Tesla Autopilot. Musk recruited Karpathy away from OpenAI while the Tesla CEO was a board member at both tech companies. Karpathy's work at OpenAI and Tesla came up repeatedly during the Musk v. Altman trial, which concluded on Monday, with the jury and judge ruling in OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's favor. In one email exchange that was presented as an exhibit during the proceedings, Musk described Karpathy as "arguably the #2 guy in the world in computer vision," behind Ilya Sutskever, another OpenAI co-founder. "The OpenAI guys are gonna want to kill me, but it had to be done...," Musk wrote, regarding his hiring of Karpathy. Karpathy was one of several OpenAI employees Musk borrowed from OpenAI to do months of free work at Tesla, where the development of self-driving vehicles wasn't going as quickly as promised. Karpathy left Tesla in 2022, and the company still doesn't sell a vehicle that's safe to use without a human driver ready to steer or brake at all times. After leaving Tesla, Karpathy briefly went back to OpenAI before starting AI education startup Eureka Labs, where he has worked until now. Karpathy holds a PhD in computer science from Stanford.

OpenAI co-founder Karpathy joins Anthropic pre-training team

Karpathy will build a new team that uses Claude itself to accelerate the most expensive phase of frontier model development Andrej Karpathy, one of the original co-founders of OpenAI and among the most recognised AI researchers in the world, announced on Monday that he has joined Anthropic. The move is a significant talent coup for the Claude maker as it races to stay at the frontier of large language model development. Karpathy is joining Anthropic's pre-training team, led by Nick Joseph, where he will build a brand-new group focused on a strikingly recursive goal: using Claude itself to accelerate pre-training research. Pre-training, the massive compute-intensive phase that gives a frontier model its core knowledge and capabilities, is the single most expensive part of building systems like Claude. Finding ways to make that process faster and more efficient could reshape the economics of the entire AI industry. In an X post that racked up 13.6 million views, Karpathy wrote that he believes "the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative." He added that he remains "deeply passionate about education" and plans to resume that work in time. The hire caps a career arc that has touched nearly every major inflection point in modern AI. Karpathy earned his PhD at Stanford under Fei-Fei Li, the computer scientist behind ImageNet, focusing on deep learning and computer vision. He was among the 11 people who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, where he worked on deep learning research before departing in 2017 to join Tesla as its director of AI. At Tesla, Karpathy led the computer vision teams behind Full Self-Driving and Autopilot, the programmes that underpin the electric carmaker's ambitions for autonomous vehicles. He left in July 2022, returned to OpenAI for roughly a year, then departed again in 2024 to found Eureka Labs, a startup applying AI assistants to education. Eureka Labs' work is now paused while Karpathy throws his weight behind Anthropic. The timing is notable. Anthropic has emerged as a magnet for top-tier technical talent at a moment when its chief rival, OpenAI, has experienced a string of high-profile departures. Over the past two years, OpenAI has lost more than a dozen senior executives and researchers, including CTO Mira Murati, reinforcement learning pioneer John Schulman, and, most recently, three executives who left on a single day in April 2026. For Anthropic, landing Karpathy signals that the company can attract talent of the highest calibre as it scales both its research and its commercial operations. The firm, led by CEO Dario Amodei, has drawn investor interest at a valuation of roughly $800 billion and is reportedly exploring an IPO that could come as early as late 2026. Karpathy's new role also underscores a broader trend in frontier AI: the use of existing models to improve the next generation. If Claude can meaningfully speed up its own pre-training pipeline, it would mark a practical demonstration of recursive self-improvement, one of the capabilities the AI safety community has long watched closely. Whether that prospect excites or unnerves observers may depend on how much trust they place in the safety-minded culture Anthropic has cultivated since its founding. For now, Karpathy appears to be exactly where he wants to be: back in the lab, building models at the frontier.

OpenAI Cofounder Andrej Karpathy Joins Anthropic as Sam Altman's Fortunes Turn

Anthropic was founded by OpenAI exiles. It's adding one more. On Tuesday, former OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy announced on X that he will be joining Anthropic, seemingly to work on the lab's research and development team. "Personal update: I've joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative," he wrote. "I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time." Karpathy had an on-again, off-again relationship with OpenAI, serving as a founding member of the group and research scientist from 2015 to 2017, before Elon Musk poached him to serve as Tesla's director of artificial intelligence. He rejoined OpenAI in 2023 and hung on for about a year before stepping away again in the wake of the very dramatic and short-lived ouster of Sam Altman as CEOâ€"though Karpathy denied his exit had anything to do with that whole situation. It's hard not to read Karpathy's move to Anthropic in the context of the Cold War between the two major frontier labs. Not only is Anthropic made up largely of OpenAI send-offs, but it's also started to act in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" fashion. Earlier this month, Anthropic announced that it was going to start using computing power made available by SpaceX (née xAI) despite the fact that CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly referred to the company as "evil." Turns out he must think it is less evil than a Sam Altman-led OpenAI, and given that his lawsuit to punish Altman failed, might as well lend support to his biggest rival. Karpathy, the creator of the term "vibe coding," will reportedly be joining Anthropic's pre-training lab, per Axios, and will help to launch a new team that will be focused on using Claude, the company's flagship AI model, to accelerate pre-training research. Just how that'll go, we'll have to see. Karpathy's credentials are pretty much unassailable, but he's certainly gotten a bit high off the supply of AI hype at times. He called Moltbook, the social network for AI agents, “genuinely the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing I have seen recentlyâ€â€"only for it to be revealed that most of the content on the site was actually human-generated. Earlier this year, he described himself as being in a "state of AI psychosis" and said that he's embraced "tokenmaxxing," the practice of using as many tokens as possible to maximize your AI use, whether it's actually necessary or not. Whether Anthropic is getting industry icon Karpathy or AI slop-ified Karpathy, simply getting him is something of a coup for the company in terms of attracting talent. It signals that the serious minds in the space are gravitating toward Anthropicâ€"or at least away from Altman. Whatever the price tag to bring him in might be, it could be worth it simply to bolster the perception that Anthropic is the place to be.

OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic

Why it matters: The hire is a major coup for Anthropic in the high-stakes competition for elite AI talent -- and another sign the company is emerging as a magnet for some of the industry's most respected technical minds. Driving the news: Karpathy will start this week on Anthropic's pre-training team, which is responsible for the massive training runs that give Claude its core knowledge and capabilities, according to Anthropic. * Karpathy will help launch a new team focused on using Claude itself to accelerate pretraining research -- an increasingly important frontier as AI companies race to automate parts of AI development. * "I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D," Karpathy said in a post on X. Between the lines: Karpathy is a rare AI figure with credibility across research, industry and education. * He was a founding member of OpenAI before serving as Tesla's director of AI, where he led the computer vision team behind Autopilot. * Karpathy coined the term "vibe coding" and recently described himself as being in a "state of AI psychosis" since December -- embracing "tokenmaxxing" and aggressively stress-testing frontier models. Zoom out: Since leaving Tesla in 2022, Karpathy has become one of AI's most influential public educators, building a massive following through technical explainers and educational content on YouTube and X. * He said Tuesday that he remains "deeply passionate about education" and plans to return to that work "in time." The bottom line: The AI race is often framed around massive funding rounds and scarce computing power. Just as important is the fierce competition for the small pool of researchers -- like Karpathy -- capable of advancing the frontier.

Influential AI researcher Andrej Karpathy announces he's joining Anthropic

Andrej Karpathy, the influential 39-year-old Slovak-Canadian AI researcher and one of the original 11 co-founders of OpenAI, and former head of Tesla's AI division, announced on Tuesday, May 19 that he's joining rival lab Anthropic. As Karpathy posted from his account on the social network X: "Personal update: I've joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time." Anthropic's current Head of Pretraining, Nicholas Joseph, also a former OpenAI alumnus, added more context to Karpathy's new role at Anthropic in a post of his own on X, writing: Excited to welcome Andrej to the Pretraining team! He'll be building a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pretraining research itself. I can't think of anyone better suited to do it -- looking forward to what we build together!" The announcement came on the same day as the start of rival AI-focused tech firm Google's annual I/O developer conference in its headquarters city of Mountain View, California, when many new releases and announcements were expected. Karpathy's storied history Karpathy is widely known for spanning three parts of the modern AI boom: academic research, big-company deployment and online education. His own website describes him as an AI researcher and educator who was a founding member of OpenAI, later served as Director of AI at Tesla, and helped create Stanford's first deep learning course, CS231n. OpenAI's December 2015 launch announcement also listed Karpathy among the group's founding members. At Tesla, where he worked from 2017 to 2022, Karpathy led the computer vision team for Autopilot and says his team handled in-house data labeling, neural network training and deployment on Tesla's custom inference chip. He then returned to OpenAI from 2023 to 2024, where his website says he built a team focused on midtraining and synthetic data generation -- experience directly relevant to Anthropic's reported pretraining role. Karpathy's academic work began at Stanford, where he earned his PhD under Fei-Fei Li and focused on neural networks for computer vision, natural language processing and the intersection of the two. He also interned at Google Brain, Google Research and DeepMind, according to his website. His education includes an MSc from the University of British Columbia and a BSc from the University of Toronto, where he double-majored in computer science and physics. What will become of Karpathy's open source research and commitment to AI education? Since leaving OpenAI in 2024, Karpathy has become one of AI's most visible public educators, publishing technical and general-audience videos on large language models and neural networks. He also launched Eureka Labs in July 2024 as an "AI-native" school; its first product, LLM101n, is described as an undergraduate-level course guiding students through training their own AI system. Acting on his own as a free agent over the last two years, Karpathy has also helped push open source AI research forward with products and standards including autoresearch, an LLM-driven automated researcher that can run multiple hypothesis and experiments simultaneously, and the LLM Knowledge Base, an autonomous system of storing memory and context for AI agents in a kind of ever-growing library designed for them to access. The big question is what becomes of these and Karpathy's open source AI efforts more generally as he joins Anthropic, a lab that has supported open source via the launch of its Model Context Protocol (MCP) technical standard, but which also famously has shipped primarily proprietary AI models and harnesses (such as Claude and Claude Code). Based on the last statement in his announcement post on X -- "I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time" -- it appears that at least his contributions to the AI-native school effort will be paused as he digs in at Anthropic.

Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI founding member and inventor of 'vibe coding,' defects to Anthropic | Fortune

"Personal update: I've joined Anthropic," Andrej Karpathy wrote onX on Tuesday, in a post that drew nearly 3 million views within one hour. He said the next few years at the frontier of LLMs would be "especially formative" and that he was eager to get back to research. He started this week on the pre-training team. The decision suggests that Karpathy, whose writing on AI is followed by nearly two million people on X, has decided to put his stake in the AI race. He was first a founding member of OpenAI in 2015, left to run AI at Tesla, came back in 2023, and left only a year later to start his own education company, Eureka Labs. Karpathy has been well known in AI for a decade, but the thing -- or phrase -- that etched him into AI legend was a tweet from last year. In February 2025, he posted that there was a "new kind of coding" that he called vibe coding: describe what you want plainly and let the model do the work. The phrase escaped the industry and infected the business world, which turned its back against software companies and raced to develop its own bespoke agents, touching off the much-debated "SaaSpocalypse" in its wake. (What wasn't debated is that tens of billions of dollars in stock valuations evaporated as firms tried to "vibe code" their own solutions.) Collins Dictionary named it Word of the Year. The model he cited in that original tweet was Anthropic's. As an Anthropic employee, Karpathy will be building on the work from another viral post. In March, he wired up an AI coding agent, handed it a single small language model, and let it run unsupervised for two days, testing and tweaking the training code on its own. After 700 experiments and 20 self-found optimizations, he said the same tweaks applied to a larger model cut training time by 11%. This, he said, was called autoresearch-"Part code, part sci-fi, and a pinch of psychosis" he wrote with a smiley face. The method would come to be known as "the Karpathy Loop." Teaching that method looks, more or less, like his new job. According to Anthropic, Karpathy will be starting a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pre-training research; the large-scale training runs that give Claude its core knowledge and capabilities. He sits on a team led by Nick Joseph. Long before any of this, though, Karpathy was famous for something else: his Rubik's Cube skills. He ran a YouTube channel called "badmephisto," where a generation of competitive cubers learned to "speedcube" by seeing the cube as 26 individual "cubies" rather than 54 colored stickers. By sticking to the small structure, he could move the whole thing. He solved a Rubik's Cube in about 17 seconds. Certainly the puzzles for Karpathy got harder; neural nets and then language models, but the method never really changed. Get a small enough system fully under control, and you can move something much bigger.

Why OpenAI Cofounder Andrej Karpathy Just Joined Its Fiercest Rival

In a post on X, Karpathy confirmed that he had joined Anthropic, and said that "I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time." An Anthropic spokesperson told Inc. that Karapthy will join Anthropic's pretraining team, which handles the initial large-scale training runs that imbue AI models with knowledge and an understanding of agentic capabilities. Within pretraining, the company says, Karpathy will lead a group focused on using Claude to accelerate research. Anthropic says that Karpathy started at Anthropic earlier this week. Karpathy is one of the most famous (and beloved) AI researchers of his generation. He cofounded OpenAI in 2015 alongside AI luminaries including Sam Altman and Elon Musk. From 2017 to 2022, he served as the director of AI at Tesla, then briefly returned to OpenAI between 2023 and 2024.

Who Is Andrej Karpathy, the Renowned AI Researcher Who Joined Anthropic?

At Tesla, Karpathy shifted from radar to camera-based neural vision Andrej Karpathy, an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and influential figure in the field, is joining Anthropic. On Tuesday, the OpenAI Co-Founder announced his decision on social media, highlighting that his role will focus on research and development. While he did not share more about the focus area, reports claim that Karpathy will be involved in the pretraining process. It is expected that he will continue his work with Eureka Labs as well. Notably, this is the first job the researcher has taken up after the short stint at OpenAI between 2023 and 2024. Andrej Karpathy Joins Anthropic In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Karpathy announced his next move, saying, "I've joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D." The move is interesting since the researcher is also a founding member of OpenAI. For Anthropic, this is a massive move since Karpathy's work in the AI space is widely regarded. From training frontier AI models and building their architecture to upgrading Tesla cars' self-driving technology with camera-based neural networks, he has more than a decade worth of experience in the field. His rise to fame is also interesting. After earning his Bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto and getting his master's from the University of British Columbia in computer science, Karpathy also received his PhD in the same field in 2011. While pursuing the PhD, he also interned at Google Brain, Google Research, and DeepMind. His primary work focused on deep reinforcement learning and video classification, with both becoming pivotal for his later career. Following his academic accomplishments, Karpathy joined as a founding research scientist at OpenAI, becoming one of the co-founders. During his time there, he worked on very early versions of AI image generation and computer use, largely around deep reinforcement learning. His moment of fame arrived in 2017 when Elon Musk personally hired him as the Senior Director of AI. After joining, he led the computer vision team of Tesla Autopilot, working on neural network training and data gathering. He also shifted from the radar-based full self-driving (FSD) system to a camera-based neural vision network. He left the company in 2022. After a brief break, Karpathy began focusing on his passion for educating people about AI technology and started posting regularly to his YouTube channel. He also returned briefly to OpenAI to work on the mid-training of the GPT-4 model. In 2024, Karpathy founded Eureka Labs, an AI-native education platform aiming to create an undergraduate-level generative AI curriculum. While not a lot is known about this, it is believed that the computer scientist is working on the project continually. Apart from being an influential presence in the industry, Karpathy also commands a large, loyal fanbase on social media platforms, primarily X. He is believed to be a "high-signal" voice (as opposed to those who spread misleading information) in the community who transparently spreads information about AI in an accessible manner. Interestingly, he is believed to be the populariser of the term "vibe coding." Some accounts also call him the inventor of the term, but that could not be verified due to a lack of information.

Meet Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI founding researcher hired by rival Anthropic; His education, Tesla role and others

Andrej Karpathy, the 39-year-old AI researcher, educator and OpenAI founding member is back in headlines after announcing that he has joined Anthropic, one of OpenAI's biggest rivals in the rapidly escalating AI race. In the world of artificial intelligence, there are famous CEOs -- and then there are the people quietly shaping the technology behind the scenes. Karpathy belongs firmly in the second category. "Personal update: I've joined Anthropic," Karpathy wrote on X on Tuesday. "I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative." Anthropic later confirmed that he would join its pretraining team -- the group responsible for large-scale testing and development of Claude, the company's AI model. Andrej Karpathy is an AI researcher best known for his work at OpenAI, Tesla and in the field of deep learning education. Born in Czechoslovakia -- now Slovakia -- Karpathy moved to Canada with his family when he was 15 years old. He studied Computer Science and Physics at the University of Toronto before earning a master's degree from the University of British Columbia. He later completed his PhD at Stanford University under renowned AI professor Fei-Fei Li in 2015. His research focused on neural networks, computer vision and natural language processing -- technologies that now power modern AI systems. Andrej Karpathy said he joined Anthropic because he believes the next few years will be "especially formative" for large language models and AI research. In his announcement on X, the former OpenAI researcher said he was excited to "get back to R&D," signalling a return to hands-on AI development after focusing heavily on education and independent projects following his exit from OpenAI in 2024. Anthropic later confirmed that Karpathy would join its pretraining team, which works on large-scale testing and development of Claude AI. Karpathy's move is being seen as a major boost for Anthropic at a time when competition between AI companies is intensifying rapidly. Karpathy joining Anthropic is significant because he is considered one of the most influential researchers in modern AI. With experience at OpenAI and Tesla, his arrival strengthens Anthropic's position in the race against ChatGPT and other AI models. The hiring also highlights how companies developing advanced AI systems are aggressively competing for top talent as the battle over the future of generative AI grows bigger. Yes. Karpathy was one of the founding research scientists at OpenAI and worked there between 2015 and 2017 during the company's early years. At a time when generative AI was still far from mainstream, he helped build foundational research that would later influence the modern AI boom. He returned to OpenAI again in 2023 for a second stint and publicly supported CEO Sam Altman during the company's dramatic leadership crisis. However, he left again in February 2024. After his first exit from OpenAI, Karpathy joined Tesla as Director of AI. There, he led the Autopilot computer vision team -- one of Tesla's most important AI divisions. His work focused heavily on how AI systems interpret roads, traffic signs, pedestrians and real-world driving environments using cameras and neural networks. For many tech enthusiasts, this is where Karpathy became widely known beyond research communities. Karpathy is also hugely popular online for making complicated AI concepts understandable. His lectures, coding tutorials and educational videos have become widely followed among students, developers and AI enthusiasts. In 2024, he was named on Time Magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People in AI. He is also credited with coining the term "vibe coding" -- a phrase used to describe building apps or writing code using natural-language prompts with AI tools. In his post announcing the move, Karpathy said he was excited to return to research and development. "I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time," he wrote. That line stood out to many followers because despite working at the centre of the AI industry, Karpathy has consistently remained one of the field's most visible educators.

Why Andrej Karpathy Chose Anthropic Over OpenAI

Andrej Karpathy, a prominent figure in artificial intelligence, has recently joined Anthropic, a company known for its focus on ethical AI development and safety. This move signals a shift in Karpathy's career toward addressing the societal implications of AI, aligning with Anthropic's mission to prioritize oversight and responsibility in the field. As a former head of Tesla AI and co-founder of OpenAI, Karpathy's expertise in machine learning and computer vision has been instrumental in advancing the industry. His decision to join Anthropic reflects a growing emphasis within the AI community on balancing innovation with ethical considerations, a topic explored in this feature by Matthew Berman. In this overview, you'll gain insight into the broader implications of Karpathy's transition and what it reveals about shifting priorities in the AI sector. Explore how Anthropic's safety-first philosophy contrasts with other industry approaches and understand the potential impact of consolidating talent within a few influential organizations. The discussion also examines how this move highlights emerging trends in AI leadership, offering a lens into the evolving cultural and ethical debates shaping the future of artificial intelligence. Andrej Karpathy is a name that resonates deeply within the AI field. As a co-founder of OpenAI and the former head of Tesla AI, his contributions have significantly advanced machine learning and computer vision technologies. His work has not only driven technical progress but also made complex AI concepts more accessible to a broader audience, earning him recognition as an influential educator. Karpathy's career has been defined by a commitment to innovation and education, inspiring countless researchers and developers to explore the possibilities of AI. By joining Anthropic, Karpathy has taken a notable step in his professional journey. This decision aligns him with a company that prioritizes ethical considerations and safety in AI development, signaling a shift in his focus toward addressing the broader societal implications of AI technologies. Anthropic has established itself as a leader in advocating for a cautious and ethically grounded approach to AI. The company's mission revolves around addressing the potential risks of AI development while making sure that its benefits are realized responsibly. Key elements of Anthropic's philosophy include: Karpathy's decision to join Anthropic underscores his alignment with these principles. His expertise and reputation lend further credibility to the company's mission, reinforcing its commitment to addressing the societal and ethical challenges posed by AI. Discover other guides from our vast content that could be of interest on Andrej Karpathy. Karpathy's transition to Anthropic represents more than a personal career decision, it is a statement that validates Anthropic's cautious approach to AI development. This move highlights a broader trend within the industry: the centralization of AI talent within a small number of influential organizations, such as Anthropic, OpenAI and X.AI. While this concentration of expertise can accelerate innovation, it also raises concerns about the consolidation of influence and decision-making power in the AI sector. The decision also reflects a growing societal unease about the rapid advancement of AI technologies. From concerns about job displacement to ethical dilemmas surrounding autonomous systems, AI's impact on society has become a focal point of public debate. Karpathy's alignment with Anthropic emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues through a balanced and thoughtful approach, prioritizing safety and ethical considerations without stifling progress. The AI industry is increasingly characterized by a division between two distinct schools of thought: This polarization mirrors broader societal debates about the benefits and risks of AI. Public skepticism is growing, fueled by media narratives that often highlight worst-case scenarios, such as mass unemployment or the ethical challenges posed by autonomous systems. These contrasting perspectives make it increasingly difficult to foster balanced discussions about AI's future and its role in society. AI has become a central topic in cultural and political discourse, with advocates and critics offering starkly different perspectives. Proponents argue that AI can drive innovation, solve complex global challenges and enhance everyday life. Critics, however, warn of existential risks, ethical dilemmas and the need for robust regulatory frameworks to prevent misuse. Media coverage often amplifies these divisions, focusing on dramatic scenarios that shape public perception and fuel debates. This polarized environment underscores the importance of informed and balanced discussions about AI's role in society. As AI technologies continue to evolve, navigating these debates will be critical to shaping policies that reflect both the opportunities and challenges of AI. Karpathy's influence at Anthropic has the potential to shape the future of AI development in significant ways. His expertise and leadership could help bridge the gap between the optimistic and cautious perspectives within the industry, fostering a more nuanced approach to AI innovation. By prioritizing safety and ethical responsibility without hindering progress, Karpathy and Anthropic may set a new standard for responsible AI practices. As the AI industry grapples with complex challenges, from ethical considerations to societal impacts, the need for thoughtful and principled leadership has never been more urgent. Karpathy's decision to join Anthropic serves as a reminder that the future of AI will be shaped not only by technological advancements but also by the values and principles guiding its development. Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Anthropic Just Landed One Of AI's Biggest Names

Anthropic has hired Andrej Karpathy, a co-founder of OpenAI and former director of artificial intelligence and Autopilot Vision at Tesla. "I've joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D (research and development). I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time," Kathpathy wrote on X. Karpathy is expected to create a new team aimed at using Claude itself to speed up research tied to pre-training, an Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch. Karpathy's career has included a stretch at OpenAI working on deep learning and computer vision. He then left to join Tesla in 2017, later running the company's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) efforts before he departed in 2022. Karpathy then returned to OpenAI for about a year, and exited again in 2024 to launch education-focused startup Eureka Labs. He has shared limited public details about Eureka Labs since its debut. It is uncertain whether he will remain involved. Anthropic also hired cybersecurity veteran Chris Rohlf to its frontier red team, which is tasked with probing advanced models for high-severity risks. Rohlf previously worked with Yahoo's security unit known as "The Paranoids," and later spent six years at Meta, according to TechCrunch. Rohlf has also been affiliated with Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, where he contributed to the CyberAI project. In an X post, he wrote, "The speed of AI progress is astounding. We have a real opportunity in front of us to dramatically improve cybersecurity with AI. I can't think of a better company or team to join at this critical moment in time." Earlier this month, Anthropic announced a partnership with Elon Musk's SpaceXAI to use all of the compute capacity at SpaceX's data center Colossus 1 in Memphis, Tennessee. The partnership will give Anthropic more than 300 megawatts of additional capacity (over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs) to deploy within the month and will increase limits for Claude Code and the Claude API. Anthropic has also acquired developer tools company Stainless, in an effort to "improve developer experience and the connections between agents and external systems. Photo Courtesy: Stockinq on Shutterstock This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic - The Economic Times

Renowned AI researcher Andrej Karpathy has joined Anthropic, marking a significant talent acquisition for the AI company. Karpathy, a co-founder of OpenAI and former Director of AI at Tesla, expressed excitement about contributing to LLM research and development. He also plans to continue his work in AI education.Renowned researcher Andrej Karpathy announced on social media on Tuesday that he has joined Anthropic, in a major talent win for the artificial intelligence (AI) giant. Karpathy, a major figure in modern deep learning, previously cofounded OpenAI and served as the director of AI at Tesla, where he led the Autopilot computer vision team. In a personal update sharing the news, Karpathy said, "Personal update: I've joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time." He had recently been focusing on his AI education startup Eureka Labs.

Andrej Karpathy Lands at Anthropic Amid AI Research Arms Race | PYMNTS.com

The move underscores how competition in AI centers not only on chips and infrastructure, but also on attracting a relatively small pool of researchers capable of pushing model performance forward. Anthropic, best known for its Claude family of models, has emerged as one of OpenAI's strongest rivals in enterprise AI and coding applications. Karpathy announced the move on X, saying he was excited to return to research and development work during what he described as a formative period for large language models. According to Reuters, he will work under Anthropic's pretraining lead Nick Joseph, another former OpenAI employee. Karpathy carries unusual influence across both research and developer communities. Beyond his work at OpenAI and Tesla's Autopilot division, he became widely followed for educational content explaining neural networks and transformers to engineers and nontechnical audiences. He also founded Eureka Labs in 2024, an AI-focused education company that remains active alongside his new role at Anthropic. The hire comes as Anthropic continues to expand aggressively across enterprise AI. The company has positioned Claude as a model family optimized for coding, enterprise workflows and AI safety, areas viewed as critical battlegrounds for commercial adoption. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers including Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei. Karpathy's move also adds to the growing list of high-profile departures from OpenAI over the past two years. Former OpenAI leaders including John Schulman, Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati have all left the company amid broader debates over AI commercialization, governance and research priorities. The recruitment also reflects how AI companies compete through researcher ecosystems and developer mindshare. Karpathy's technical credibility, combined with his popularity among engineers building with generative AI tools, gives Anthropic both research depth and cultural influence at a time when coding assistants and agentic AI systems are becoming major commercial markets.

Andrej Karpathy Picks Anthropic Over OpenAI : Here's Why It Matters for Claude

Andrej Karpathy's decision to join Anthropic signals a pivotal moment for the AI industry, particularly for the development and application of systems like Claude. Known for his new work at OpenAI and Tesla, Karpathy brings a unique focus on context engineering and user-centric design, aligning closely with Anthropic's mission to create practical, adaptable AI solutions. As highlighted by Nate Herk, this collaboration could enhance Claude's ability to integrate seamlessly into workflows, addressing challenges like usability and enterprise adoption. By combining Karpathy's expertise with Anthropic's established strengths, the partnership aims to push the boundaries of AI's role in real-world applications. Explore how this collaboration could lead to innovations such as a context marketplace, where workflows and domain-specific solutions are shared to accelerate AI adoption. Gain insight into potential updates to Claude, including enhanced goal-oriented features and educational layers designed to simplify complex tasks and make AI more accessible. This analysis provide more insights into the broader implications of Karpathy's move, examining how it could influence not only Claude's evolution but also the trajectory of AI development across industries. Andrej Karpathy is widely recognized as a pioneer in AI development. As a founding member of OpenAI and the former head of AI at Tesla, he has played a pivotal role in advancing machine learning, neural networks and autonomous systems. Beyond his technical achievements, Karpathy has been a strong advocate for AI education, launching initiatives such as Eureka Labs and LLM 101N to make complex AI concepts more accessible to a broader audience. His focus on concepts like "vibe coding" and "context engineering" highlights his dedication to creating AI systems that are intuitive, adaptable and user-centric. These principles align closely with Anthropic's vision, making his addition to the team a significant development that could influence the trajectory of AI innovation. Anthropic has steadily emerged as a key player in the AI sector, particularly through its flagship tools like Claude and Cloud Code. These systems are designed with a strong emphasis on usability and seamless context integration, making them highly valuable for enterprise applications. The company's recent partnerships with major organizations such as Blackstone and Goldman Sachs underscore its growing influence in the business world. In some areas, Anthropic has even surpassed OpenAI in adoption metrics, demonstrating its ability to deliver practical, real-world AI solutions that prioritize functionality and accessibility. This momentum positions Anthropic as a leader in the development of AI systems that are not only powerful but also tailored to meet the needs of diverse industries. Advance your skills in Andrej Karpathy by reading more of our detailed content. The AI industry is undergoing a significant transformation, moving away from a purely model-centric approach toward one that prioritizes usability, integration, and real-world application. While model performance remains a critical factor, the focus is increasingly on building ecosystems that enhance the overall user experience. This includes embedding AI into workflows, memory systems and business operations to create seamless and efficient processes. Anthropic's tools, such as Claude, are designed to act as "wrappers" that simplify AI adoption and make it more effective for users. Karpathy's expertise in context-driven AI and autonomous workflows aligns perfectly with this shift, allowing Anthropic to push the boundaries of what AI can achieve in practical settings. Karpathy's philosophy on AI development complements Anthropic's mission to create systems that are both functional and user-friendly. His work on tools like LLM Wiki and Auto Research reflects a commitment to organizing knowledge and designing AI systems that are goal-oriented and context-aware. These tools emphasize structuring AI around user needs rather than treating them as isolated models. By joining Anthropic, Karpathy can contribute to innovations such as a context marketplace, where workflows, skills and domain-specific tools can be shared and reused. This approach has the potential to make AI systems more adaptable, efficient and scalable, particularly in enterprise environments where customization and flexibility are critical. The collaboration between Karpathy and Anthropic is expected to drive several advancements in AI development and application. Potential innovations include: These developments could significantly enhance the practicality and user-friendliness of AI systems like Claude, accelerating their adoption across various sectors and empowering users to achieve more with less effort. Despite its immense potential, AI adoption continues to face challenges, particularly in the areas of education and usability. Many users find AI systems complex and difficult to implement effectively, which can hinder their ability to fully use these technologies. Karpathy's extensive background in AI education positions him uniquely to address these issues. By simplifying AI concepts and creating resources that empower users, he could help bridge the gap between AI's technical capabilities and its practical applications. Overcoming these challenges will be essential for making sure that tools like Claude deliver meaningful value and achieve widespread adoption across industries. Andrej Karpathy's move to Anthropic represents more than just a partnership; it signifies a broader shift in the AI landscape. The focus on usability, context integration, and enterprise adoption reflects an industry-wide trend toward creating AI systems that are not only powerful but also deeply integrated into real-world applications. This collaboration has the potential to set new benchmarks for how AI is developed, deployed and utilized, influencing the direction of the entire industry. As Anthropic continues to innovate and expand its offerings, the partnership with Karpathy could serve as a fantastic option for fantastic advancements that redefine the role of AI in society and business. Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Anthropic hires OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy as its momentum continues to surge

Andrej Karpathy, an OpenAI co-founder and former Tesla executive, has joined Anthropic - adding to the artificial intelligence giant's surging momentum. Karpathy -- considered to be one of the world's top AI researchers -- is working on the pre-training team which is responsible for "the large-scale training runs that give Claude its core knowledge and capabilities," the company said. The 39-year-old computer guru -- who started his new gig at the Dario Amodei-led company this week -- will build a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pre-training research, Anthropic said. Karpathy's name briefly came up in the three-week courtroom battle between Musk and OpenAI and Sam Altman. Musk testified that he had poached Karpathy from OpenAI to join Tesla, but only after he had planned to leave the startup already. OpenAI President Greg Brockman said Musk offered him "an apology and a confession," about hiring Karpathy. At Tesla, Karpathy led the computer vision team of Tesla Autopilot, the company's self-driving unit. He left Tesla in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. He holds a PhD in computer science from Stanford University and has spent the past few years developing educational AI content on YouTube and X. "I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative," Karpathy said in a post on X on Tuesday. "I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time." Anthropic said it also hired cybersecurity veteran Chris Rohlf to join its frontier red team, which tests advanced AI models against threats. Rohlf previously was security engineering director at Meta. San Francisco-based Anthropic has morphed into the current AI darling as the popularity of its Claude tools has sent revenue surging and investors scrambling to scoop up shares. Its powerful new Mythos model has also whipped up excitement - and anxieties - over the power and risks of emerging AI tools. The Post reported last month that one Silicon Valley dealmaker was so desperate for Anthropic stock that he was seeking to swap his 14-acre estate for shares of the AI giant. Karpathy will serve on Nicholas Joseph's pre-training team. "He'll be building a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pretraining research itself," Joseph posted on X. "I can't think of anyone better suited to do it -- looking forward to what we build together!"

Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic in the artificial intelligence race

Andrej Karpathy, former head of AI at Tesla and co-founder of OpenAI, has announced he is joining Anthropic, bolstering the creator of Claude in the global competition for advanced AI models. A renowned figure in the industry, Karpathy explained his desire to completely return to research and development at what he considers a decisive moment for the development of large language models. His recruitment represents a significant boost for Anthropic as it faces off against rivals like OpenAI. Karpathy played a pivotal role in the development of artificial intelligence and autonomous driving technologies at Tesla before leaving the group in 2022. He was previously among the first employees at OpenAI following his studies at Stanford under the supervision of AI specialist Fei-Fei Li. In 2024, he also launched Eureka Labs, an AI-driven educational platform, while stating his intention to continue working on long-term educational challenges. According to Anthropic, Andrej Karpathy is joining the model pre-training team, which is responsible for the massive learning phases that provide Claude systems with their fundamental capabilities. This hire is part of a broader strategy by Anthropic to attract top-tier industry talent, following the 2024 arrival of John Schulman, another OpenAI co-founder. Meanwhile, OpenAI has seen the departure of several key executives, including Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati, as competition amongst major AI players continues to intensify.

OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic

Anthropic, the company behind popular AI chatbot Claude, has just bagged its newest member. And that is none other than Andrej Karpathy, one of the co-founders of OpenAI and a former senior-level executive at Tesla. Karpathy confirmed the news in a social media post, saying that he is super "excited" to be a part of the team. Now it is no secret that tech companies are in an AI race of sorts these days. And bringing the right set of people on the team is quickly becoming just as important as building the next powerful AI product itself. At such a time, Karpathy's move to Anthropic is bound to make headlines. Read on. Also read: Google I/O 2026: Gemini 3.5 to AI smart glasses, everything that was announced In his X (formerly Twitter) post about joining Anthropic, Karpathy wrote, "I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D." He also added that he remains passionate about AI education and plans to continue working on educational content in the future. For context, Anthropic's Claude is a direct competitor of OpenAI's ChatGPT in the AI chatbot market. At the same time, Tesla boss Elon Musk's company xAI is also pushing their own AI tools, making the battle for AI dominance even more intense. Karpathy's move appears to be a big win for Anthropic, which has quickly emerged as one of the biggest companies in the AI space. Anthropic is best known for developing the Claude family of AI models and has positioned itself heavily around AI safety and alignment research. The most interesting bit is that Claude was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives including Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei. So, Karpathy joining the company could strengthen its capabilities further, especially in areas related to large language models, AI agents, and research-driven development. Before joining Anthropic, Karpathy was widely known for his work at Tesla, where he served as Director of AI and played a key role in the company's Autopilot and computer vision projects. He left Tesla in 2022 after briefly stepping away earlier that year. Karpathy was also among the early researchers associated with OpenAI and has remained highly influential in the broader AI community through technical education, independent research, and commentary around large language models and neural networks. Over the past few years, he has built a strong following online for simplifying complex AI concepts and discussing how generative AI tools are changing software development. He also popularised the term "vibe coding," which refers to developers relying on AI assistance while programming.