OpenAI Co-Founder John Schulman Departs Anthropic, Rumored to Join Mira Murati's AI Startup

OpenAI Cofounder John Schulman Quits Anthropic, Likely to Join Mira Murati's AI Startup

OpenAI cofounder John Schulman, who joined Anthropic last year, departed from the company in just five months. He is reportedly joining former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's AI startup, according to Forbes. Schulman confirmed his departure on X, while his role at Murati's startup remains unclear. "Confirming that I left Anthropic last week. Leaving wasn't easy because I enjoyed the stimulating research environment and the kind and talented people I was working with," he said. "But I decided to go with another opportunity that I found extremely compelling." Schulman, who left OpenAI in August 2024, cited a desire to focus on AI alignment research and hands-on technical work. His move signals Murati's growing influence in the AI space. Last year, Murati left her role as OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer in September 2024. The Information recently reported that Murati's company, named Thinking Machines Lab, could be inspired by the intelligent "thinking machines" from Frank Herbert's Dune or the defunct supercomputer firm Thinking Machines Corporation. Incorporated in Delaware as a benefit corporation, 'Thinking Machines Lab' has a structure that allows it to consider societal impact alongside profit, offering some protection against activist investors. Murati's company is reportedly developing Agentic AI and has already secured over $100 million in funding.

Report: OpenAI's ex-CTO, Mira Murati, has recruited OpenAI co-founder John Schulman | TechCrunch

OpenAI co-founder John Schulman, who left AI company Anthropic earlier this week after a mere five months, is reportedly joining former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's secretive new startup, per Fortune. It's not clear what Schulman's role there will be. Fortune wasn't able to learn that information, and Murati has been tight-lipped about the venture since she left OpenAI in September. But one source did reveal to Fortune that Murati has recruited additional ex-OpenAI staff, including Christian Gibson, who had been serving on OpenAI's supercomputing team. Murati was reportedly in talks to raise over $100 million for her company in October. Credited as one of the leading architects of ChatGPT, Schulman left OpenAI last August for Anthropic. He posted about the decision on X, saying it stemmed from a desire to deepen his focus on AI alignment -- the science of ensuring AI behaves as intended -- and engage in more hands-on technical work.

John Schulman Quits Anthropic Just Six Months After Leaving OpenAI

However, Schulman has reportedly departed Anthropic just six months after joining. OpenAI co-founder and leading AI alignment researcher John Schulman has left his role at Anthropic just six months after joining the startup. Schulman's departure was confirmed by Anthropic on Wednesday, Feb. 5, raising the possibility that he may follow other OpenAI co-founders and form a new AI venture. Who Is John Schulman? One of OpenAI's eleven co-founders, Schulman, led the reinforcement learning team that developed ChatGPT. Schulman's great contribution to the project was applying reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) to OpenAI's language models. As he explained in 2023: "The idea was to align our models with human preference -- try to get them to actually listen to us and try to do what we want." In the years since then, Schulman has continued to focus on the notion of alignment. In August 2024, he left OpenAI amid a wave of departures that included fellow co-founders Jan Leike and Mira Muratti. At the time, he said he was taking up the role at Anthropic to "focus on AI alignment" and "return to hands on technical work." Next Steps Although Schulman has not yet disclosed what he plans to do next, Anthropic's chief science officer Jared Kaplan said : "We are sad to see John go but fully support his decision to pursue new opportunities." One possibility is that he could follow several other OpenAI co-founders who have gone on to form their own AI startups. These include Ilya Sutskever, who founded Safe Superintelligence, Andrej Karpathy, who launched Eureka Labs, and Vicki Cheung, who helped found Gantry. Lab-Hopping in the AI-Sector While Schulman's tenure at Anthropic was especially short lived, hopping between AI labs is commonplace among the field's leading researchers. OpenAI itself initially poached top talent from Google DeepMind. Meanwhile, Schulman isn't the only former OpenAI employee to find a home at Anthropic. Others include fellow OpenAI co-founders Jared Kaplan and Durk Kingman, the leading AI safety researcher Jan Leike, and Anthropics CEO and President Dario and Daniela Amodei.

OpenAI co-founder John Schulman leaves Anthropic after just five months | TechCrunch

OpenAI co-founder and prominent AI researcher John Schulman has left Anthropic after five months, according to multiple reports. Credited as one of the leading architects of ChatGPT, Schulman left OpenAI last August for its direct competitor, Anthropic. He posted about the decision on X, saying it stemmed from a desire to deepen his focus on AI alignment -- the science of ensuring AI behaves as intended -- and engage in more hands-on technical work. "[At Anthropic], I believe I can gain new perspectives and do research alongside people deeply engaged with the topics I'm most interested in," Schulman wrote. Schulman hasn't publicly addressed his departure from Anthropic, nor has he indicated what he plans to do next. In a statement provided to Bloomberg, Anthropic's chief science officer, Jared Kaplan, said that he was "sad to see John go," but "fully support[s] his decision to pursue new opportunities."

John Schulman leaves AI startup Anthropic

(Reuters) - John Schulman, an OpenAI co-founder who joined Anthropic last year, has left his role at the artificial intelligence startup, the company said late on Wednesday. "We are sad to see John go but fully support his decision to pursue new opportunities and wish him all the very best," Jared Kaplan, Anthropic's chief science officer, said in an emailed statement to Reuters. Schulman joined Anthropic after leaving OpenAI in August to deepen his focus on AI alignment, and return to hands-on technical work. Anthropic, a major competitor of OpenAI in the AI foundation model space, has annualized revenue hit about $875 million, sells access to its models directly and through third-party cloud services including Amazon Web Services. The Information earlier reported on Schulman leaving the AI firm. (Reporting by Harshita Meenaktshi and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)