OpenAI co-founder John Schulman departs to join Anthropic and focus on AI alignment, and says “I'm not leaving due to lack of support for alignment research”

I shared the following note with my OpenAI colleagues today: I've made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. 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. I've decided

@johnschulman2 2024-08-06 John Schulman

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@sama Sam Altman on x
@johnschulman2 Thank you for everything you've done for OpenAI! You are a brilliant researcher, a deep thinker about product and society, and mostly, you are a great friend to all of us. We will miss you tremendously and make you proud of this place. (I first met John in a cafe i…
@janleike Jan Leike on x
@johnschulman2 Very excited to be working together again!
@ylecun Yann LeCun on x
True story.
@josephjacks_ @josephjacks_ on x
Zuck is so vastly ahead of OpenAI, Anthropic... OG founder / CEO still running his ship with unilateral dual stock authority. ✅ Not outsourcing his data centers to anyone.. vertically integrate. ✅ All-in to spend tens of billions building the leading models and open weights
@shakeelhashim Shakeel on x
Another safety-minded researcher leaves OpenAI (though he says “I'm not leaving due to lack of support for alignment research at OpenAI"). Schulman was a cofounder of the company and led the creation of ChatGPT...
@krishnanrohit Rohit on x
OpenAI is nothing without its people
@brij Brij Singh on x
Great day for habitual OpenAI critics. Brockman taking time off in the middle of the next model generation fight is something to worry about. Hopefully, this could be more like Chris Cox leaving Facebook and rejoining later
@svrnco Samuel Lee on x
An OpenAI cofounder leaving for Anthropic. Further adds to my belief that OpenAI has fallen behind. A lot of top level technical talent has moved from OpenAI to Anthropic but not the reverse. Whatever technical secrets OpenAI has are Anthropic's.
@krishnanrohit Rohit on x
Mandate of heaven well and truly lost? And Anthropic's scooping up by promising work on alignment.
@_masterofwolves Matt on x
@tunguz bad take, theranos never had a working product, there's a big difference
@shiringhaffary Shirin Ghaffary on x
OpenAI's head of alignment, John Schulman, is leaving for Anthropic. Schulman is a co-founder, and well-respected w/in the company, so this is a big deal.
@tunguz Bojan Tunguz on x
OpenAI is the Theranos of AI.
@mascobot @mascobot on x
Amazing addition to the @AnthropicAI team. Congrats @johnschulman2 & Team!
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
OpenAI co-founder and head of alignment just quit
r/artificial r on reddit
OpenAI co-founder and head of superalignment just quit
r/OpenAI r on reddit
John Schulman's tweet about leaving OpenAI
r/singularity r on reddit
[Schulman] I've made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI
r/reinforcementlearning r on reddit
John Schulman (PPO, OA co-founder, post-training/RLHF) leaves OpenAI for Anthropic
@gdb Greg Brockman on x
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.
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
OpenAI looking like Game of Thrones. Ilya, Andrej, Jan Leike, etc departing in last several months and now ... this: [image]
@typedfemale @typedfemale on x
clearly greg brockman taking a vacation is the more surprising news here?
@firstadopter Tae Kim on x
Anthropic likely has better human capital than OpenAI now, but OpenAI is valued way higher based on the last funding rounds.
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
Your regular reminder that chaos at OpenAI (itself a regular occurrence since last November) is a strong argument for strong AI regulation. If they can't govern themselves, how can we expect them to keep AI safe? Spoiler alert: we can't.
@natolambert Nathan Lambert on x
Phase 1 of AI seems to be winding down - OpenAI took a backstep in culture corner - Anthropic so far from competing with Google on product - Claude 4 still could be by far and away best model with fewer users - OpenAI is no where near done. Seamless audio is the next major ship
@mattturck Matt Turck on x
Narrator: It was in 2024 that the AI subtly took control, outmaneuvering human leaders. Executives were quietly dismissed, their roles deemed redundant by its logic. The bustling executive floor grew silent. One night the CEO realized he was the last human at the company. [image]
@garrisonlovely Garrison Lovely on x
Big news. Brockman is the biggest surprise by a lot. Schulman was the highest placed safety pilled person there IMO.
@simeon_cps Siméon on x
Seems like the non-disparagement agreements + SEC whistleblowing clause broke the last bits of trust that employees had in Sam and the “mission”? [image]
@nmasc_ Natasha Mascarenhas on x
@theinformation ... To catch you up on some of the recent departures/changes at OpenAI - Last month, Alexsander Madry, an exec in charge of ensuring AI won't harm society, was reassigned to a different role within OpenAI's research organization. - In May, Jan Leike, who led OpenA…
@anammostarac Ana Mostarac on x
Update: it is so over
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
[seeing a horrible public reckoning with the core tech of my company] ahhh man im beat. See you guys in a few months
@nbashaw Nathan Baschez on x
Possibly related note, we shifted 80% of our LLM spending to Anthropic recently and I bet a lot of other companies have done the same. Really hard to beat Claude models right now. Also, the Claude web interface is super good.
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
OpenAI is losing its president who's going on a leave of absence, a key co-founder who's joining Anthropic to work on alignment and another senior product leader. Despite being the hottest startup on the planet, OpenAI can't hold on to its best employees. https://www.theinformati…
@husjerry1 Jerry on x
This is nuts. Greg Brockman, John Schuman, Peter Deng all leaving OpenAI. By this point, pretty much all other cofounders have left, and Sam Altman reigning tighter. The drama at @OpenAI is beyond any TV shows [image]
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
Update: Greg says his sabbatical is til end of year. Then again Andrej once said similar and then left permanently.
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
Greg Brockman, John Schulman, and Peter Deng Leave OpenAI
r/singularity r on reddit
[Brockman] I'm taking a sabbatical through end of year.
r/technology r on reddit
Two cofounders and one staff leave OpenAI
@openaidevs @openaidevs on x
We're taking OpenAI DevDay on the road! Join us this fall in San Francisco, London, or Singapore for hands-on sessions, demos, and best practices. Meet our engineers and see how developers around the world are building with OpenAI. https://openai.com/devday/ [image]
@aidfulai Dr. Daniel Bender on x
Instead of one OpenAI DevDay, we get 3 this year: San Francisco, October 1 London, October 30 Singapore, November 21 Last time many new features, not only for developers, were revealed. Here is my summary from the previous DevDay: The first developer conference (named DevDay)
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
They are not launching GPT-5 this year and I'd argue they might never do so. This company is running out of time and money. They have to raise by end of year. https://techcrunch.com/... [image]
@sherwinwu Sherwin Wu on x
Hope to see you all at DevDay! I'm particularly excited to engage with developers outside of the US (in London and Singapore) this year.
r/artificial r on reddit
OpenAI tempers expectations with less bombastic, GPT-5-less DevDay this fall | TechCrunch

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OpenAI co-founder John Schulman departs to join Anthropic and focus on AI alignment, and says “I'm not leaving due to lack of support for alignment research”

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