John Schulman, a co-founder of OpenAI, has left Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup he joined last year. The company confirmed his departure late Wednesday.
"We are sad to see John go but fully support his decision to pursue new opportunities and wish him all the very best," said Jared Kaplan, Anthropic's chief science officer, in a statement to Reuters.
Schulman, known for his work in AI alignment, left OpenAI in August to focus on technical research. His move to Anthropic positioned him within one of OpenAI’s top competitors in the AI foundation model sector. The startup, backed by major investors, generates approximately $875 million in annual revenue and offers AI model access through direct sales and cloud services like Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Anthropic, a rising force in artificial intelligence, has been competing with OpenAI in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Schulman’s departure raises questions about the company's future research direction and leadership.