OpenAI Co-Founder Schulman Leaves for Anthropic, Brockman Takes Extended Leave

John Schulman, one among OpenAI’s co-founders, has left the corporate for competing AI startup Anthropic.

The company also confirmed that OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman is taking an prolonged leave of absence after nine years at the corporate to “rest and rejuvenate.”

Peter Deng, a product manager who joined OpenAI last 12 months after leading products at Meta, Uber and Airtable, also left a while ago, the corporate confirmed. News of Brockman and Deng’s departures was previously reported by information.

A spokesperson shared this statement about Schulman: “We are grateful for John’s contributions as a founding team member at OpenAI and his dedicated efforts to advance alignment research. His passion and hard work have created a strong foundation that will inspire and support future innovation at OpenAI and the broader field.”

Schulman Published concerning the decision in X, saying it stemmed from a desire to deepen his interest in artificial intelligence (AI) alignment — the science of ensuring that AI behaves as intended — and interact in additional hands-on technical work.

“I chose to pursue this goal at Anthropic, where I believe I can gain new perspectives and conduct research alongside people who are deeply engaged in the topics I am most interested in,” Schulman said. “I am confident that OpenAI and the teams I have been a part of will continue to thrive without me.”

Schulman’s involvement with OpenAI began shortly after completing his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley. He played a key role within the creation of the AI-powered chatbot platform ChatGPT, leading OpenAI’s training organization, which tunes generative AI models to follow human instructions.

Following the departure of AI security researcher Jan Leike (who also now works at Anthropic), Schulman became the pinnacle of OpenAI’s alignment science efforts, also often known as the “post-training” team. He was also a member of OpenAI’s recently formed security committee; it’s unclear who might replace Schulman in that role.

Despite the controversy surrounding OpenAI, particularly regarding the corporate’s approach to AI safety research and the way it’s conducted, Schulman has stated that he has no intention of abandoning OpenAI as a result of lack of support.

“The company’s leaders have been very committed to investing in (fit research),” Schulman said. “My decision is personal, based on how I want to focus my efforts in the next phase of my career.”

With Schulman gone, only three of OpenAI’s 11 founders remain: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Brockman, and Wojciech Zaremba, head of the languages ​​and code generation division.

“Thank you for everything you have done for OpenAI!” he wrote Altman in a post on X. “You are a brilliant researcher, a deep thinker about product and society, and above all, a great friend to all of us. We will miss you greatly and make you proud of this place.”