OpenAI Keeps Losing Its Cofounders. Only 3 of 11 Are Still at the Company
Another cofounder has announced they are leaving for OpenAI’s top rival.
Key Takeaways
- Just three of OpenAI’s original 11 cofounders are still at the startup.
- Late Monday, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman announced on X that he would be leaving to join rival AI firm Anthropic.
- The three remaining cofounders are President Greg Brockman (who’s leaving for a sabbatical), CEO Sam Altman, and the Lead of Language and Code Generation Wojciech Zaremba.
OpenAI’s founding team started with 11 people, including Elon Musk. Now Musk is suing the company for allegedly its founding mission and several of OpenAI’s cofounders are stepping away from their roles.
Late Monday, OpenAI cofounder John Schulman that he would be leaving to join rival AI firm Anthropic. He specified that his decision was personal, and not based on lack of support for AI safety research.
“My decision is a personal one,” he wrote, adding later that he will “still be rooting” for the OpenAI team, “even while working elsewhere.”
Schulman’s departure overlaps with another OpenAI cofounder stepping back from the company. On Monday, OpenAI president Greg Brockman that he would be taking an extended sabbatical for the rest of the year.
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)
Brockman, CEO Sam Altman, and Wojciech Zaremba, a research and language team leader, are the only members of who remain at the company.
The rest, including former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, have left, with Sutskever founding his own Safe Superintelligence venture in June.
Related: OpenAI Resignations: How Do We Prevent AI From Going Rogue?
Peter Deng, OpenAI’s vice president of consumer product, also left OpenAI on Monday per The Information, though he wasn’t on the founding team.
OpenAI has faced controversy recently, with Jan Leike, its former safety leader who departed for Anthropic in May, of prioritizing “shiny products” over safety. In the same month, Scarlett Johansson hired legal counsel after finding that ChatGPT’s voice sounded “eerily similar” to hers.
Key Takeaways
- Just three of OpenAI’s original 11 cofounders are still at the startup.
- Late Monday, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman announced on X that he would be leaving to join rival AI firm Anthropic.
- The three remaining cofounders are President Greg Brockman (who’s leaving for a sabbatical), CEO Sam Altman, and the Lead of Language and Code Generation Wojciech Zaremba.
OpenAI’s founding team started with 11 people, including Elon Musk. Now Musk is suing the company for allegedly its founding mission and several of OpenAI’s cofounders are stepping away from their roles.
Late Monday, OpenAI cofounder John Schulman that he would be leaving to join rival AI firm Anthropic. He specified that his decision was personal, and not based on lack of support for AI safety research.
“My decision is a personal one,” he wrote, adding later that he will “still be rooting” for the OpenAI team, “even while working elsewhere.”
