OpenAI is currently experiencing some big leadership changes, with 2 executives leaving and taking another route in their AI focused careers. President Greg Brockman has announced he will be taking a break until the end of the year, something he describes as his first real break since co-founding the company nine years ago. Simultaneously, co-founder John Schulman is leaving totally, to join competing AI startup, Anthropic, to focus more on AI alignment and technical work.
OpenAI has seen a few departures and changes, which could contribute to complicating the stability of its leadership. Peter Deng, who joined as VP of Consumer Product last year from high-profile roles at Meta and Uber, is also leaving. This all comes after another co-founder, Ilya Sutskever departed before this, and the Sam Altman scandals.
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What Did OpenAI Say As A Response?
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OpenAI has not released an official statement as of yet, however, the former co-founder Schulman tweeted in confirmation, 鈥淚鈥檝e 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鈥檝e decided to pursue this goal at Anthropic, where I believe I can gain new perspectives and do research alongside people deeply engaged with the topics I鈥檓 most interested in.
鈥淭o be clear, I鈥檓 not leaving due to lack of support for alignment research at OpenAI. On the contrary, company leaders have been very committed to investing in this area. My decision is a personal one, based on how I want to focus my efforts in the next phase of my career.鈥� Sam Altman responded, 鈥淭hank you for everything you鈥檝e 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.
鈥�(I first met John in a cafe in Berkeley in 2015. He said something like 鈥渙n one hand it seems ridiculous to be talking about AGI right now, but on the other hand I think it鈥檚 very reasonable and here is why and also here is why I think it鈥檚 important to be talking about it鈥� and then laid out a significant fraction of what became OpenAI鈥檚 initial strategy. That took about 15 minutes and then we awkwardly chatted for another 45鈥�
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What Does This Mean For The AI Industry?
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Of course, the industry as a whole will be impacted, as we will start to see a lot of other changes and transitions between the major AI startups, driven by their shared need to advance the tech in more responsible ways. Brockman鈥檚 sabbatical and Schulman鈥檚 departure may prompt other AI companies to reassess their leadership strategies as well, to make their policies and structures more in line with the EU AI Act, for example, or the UK鈥檚 AI Action Plan that will soon be announced.
Ian Silvera, Editor of Tech, Power and Media, said: 鈥淭he generative AI industry is still very much in a nascent stage, having burst onto the scene in March 2023. It is therefore natural, especially in the highly competitive environment of Silicon Valley, that there are significant job moves and a so-called 鈥榖attle for talent鈥� amongst some of the emerging generative AI companies.鈥�
鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing new here. But it鈥檚 certainly notable that a number of these moves away from OpenAI come around nine months after the failed coup against Sam Altman as the organisation鈥檚 CEO. Because the company isn鈥檛 publicly listed and has somewhat of a unique ownership structure, it is extremely hard to analyse the ultimate motivations and rationale for those leaving OpenAI, but we do know that the original Anthropic team left OpenAI and claimed they disagreed with the company鈥檚 direction.
鈥淚n John Schulman鈥檚 case (the latest mover), he鈥檚 been very clear: stating that he has moved to Anthropic because he wants to focus more on AI alignment research. What is more interesting is how Altman and the rest of the senior leadership team at OpenAI might react to these departures (both internally and externally), especially as this is now a growing media narrative.鈥�
