OpenAI co-founders step back as Schulman leaves for rival Anthropic

OpenAI president Greg Brockman is on leave through the end of the year marking a shift for the company with only two members of its founding team left

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Only two members of OpenAI’s founding team remain at the leading generative artificial intelligence start-up. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 1:44pm, 6 Aug 2024

Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI and a central figure at the company, said he is is going on leave until the end of the year. At the same time, researcher John Schulman is leaving for rival artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic.

Both men are OpenAI co-founders, and their moves mark a shift at the company following already significant management churn this year.

Peter Deng, a vice-president of product, also left in recent months, a spokesperson said. And earlier this year, several members of the company’s safety teams exited. OpenAI has made key hires, too, recently adding a new chief financial officer and chief product officer.

The result is a start-up that looks significantly different than it did a year ago, and from when it launched in 2015. With the absence of Brockman and Schulman, only two members of OpenAI’s original founding team remain: Wojciech Zaremba and chief executive officer Sam Altman.

Brockman, who goes by “GDB” to many at the company, was a key ally of Altman when the CEO was briefly ousted last year. Brockman quit in protest after Altman was fired. In a post on X on Monday night, Brockman wrote that the leave would be his first chance to relax since the company’s founding.

Schulman, who was a research scientist at the company focused on training its AI models, said in a post on X on Monday that he would focus on safety at Anthropic, but that concerns around that issue didn’t drive his decision to quit.