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 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'm most interested in. To be clear, I'm 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.
I joined OpenAI almost 9 years ago as part of the founding team after grad school. It's the first and only company where I've ever worked, other than an internship. It's also been quite a lot of fun. I'm grateful to Sam and Greg for recruiting me back at the beginning, and Mira and Bob for putting a lot of faith in me, bringing great opportunities and helping me successfully navigate various challenges. I'm proud of what we've all achieved together at OpenAI; building an unusual and unprecedented company with a public benefit mission.
I am confident that OpenAI and the teams I was part of will continue to thrive without me. Post-training is in good hands and has a deep bench of amazing talent. I get too much credit for ChatGPT -- Barret has done an incredible job building the team into the incredibly competent operation it is now, with Liam, Luke, and others. I've been heartened to see the alignment team coming together with some promising projects. With leadership from Mia, Boaz and others, I believe the team is in very capable hands.
I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to participate in such an important part of history and I'm proud of what we've achieved together. I'll still be rooting for you all, even while working elsewhere.
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 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'm most interested in. To be clear, I'm 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.
I joined OpenAI almost 9 years ago as part of the founding team after grad school. It's the first and only company where I've ever worked, other than an internship. It's also been quite a lot of fun. I'm grateful to Sam and Greg for recruiting me back at the beginning, and Mira and Bob for putting a lot of faith in me, bringing great opportunities and helping me successfully navigate various challenges. I'm proud of what we've all achieved together at OpenAI; building an unusual and unprecedented company with a public benefit mission.
I am confident that OpenAI and the teams I was part of will continue to thrive without me. Post-training is in good hands and has a deep bench of amazing talent. I get too much credit for ChatGPT -- Barret has done an incredible job building the team into the incredibly competent operation it is now, with Liam, Luke, and others. I've been heartened to see the alignment team coming together with some promising projects. With leadership from Mia, Boaz and others, I believe the team is in very capable hands.
I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to participate in such an important part of history and I'm proud of what we've achieved together. I'll still be rooting for you all, even while working elsewhere.
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