OpenAI Co-Founder John Schulman Departs to Join Rival Anthropic

John Schulman, a co-founder of OpenAI, has announced his departure from the company to join its competitor, Anthropic. Schulman shared this news on Monday, August 5, via a post on X. "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," he stated.

Schulman played a pivotal role in advancing OpenAI's ChatGPT. His exit has raised questions about the company's future trajectory. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, expressed his appreciation in response to Schulman's post, saying, "Thank you for everything you've done for OpenAI!"

This departure follows a pattern of high-profile exits from OpenAI. In May, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left the company. Earlier in February, Andrej Karpathy, another founding member, also departed and later established an AI-integrated education platform in July. Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, exited three years after its inception.

Anthropic, the company Schulman is joining, was also founded by former OpenAI employees. It has been actively developing its own AI models, positioning itself as a significant rival to OpenAI.

Schulman's move to Anthropic signals a shift in the competitive landscape of AI development, with both companies striving to lead in the field.