John Schulman, one of the founding members of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, has departed the company to join Anthropic, a rival AI firm. This move comes amid other notable changes at OpenAI, including the temporary departure of Greg Brockman, the company's president and co-founder, who is taking an extended break until the end of the year. Additionally, Peter Deng, a product manager who joined OpenAI in 2022 after working at Meta, Uber, and Airtable, has also left the company.
What OpenAI Has To Say
OpenAI has acknowledged Schulman's departure with a statement expressing gratitude for his contributions and highlighting his role in advancing alignment research. Schulman himself announced his decision on social media, explaining that his move to Anthropic was motivated by a desire to focus more deeply on AI alignment and engage in hands-on technical work.
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"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," Schulman posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Schulman's tenure at OpenAI began shortly after he completed his doctoral studies in electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley. He made significant contributions to the development of ChatGPT by leading the company's reinforcement training division, which is responsible for refining generative AI models to follow human instructions.
Brockman, the company's president and co-founder, also posted on X, annoucing his sabbatical: "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."