Why the OpenAI-to-Anthropic pipeline remains so strong

The pipeline from OpenAI to Anthropic remains strong as ever, with co-founder Durk Kingma becoming the latest high-profile figure to make the move. Kingma, one of OpenAI’s lesser-known co-founders, joined Anthropic on Tuesday, best known for developing rival AI chatbot Claude.

In a series of posts on

“Anthropic’s approach to AI development resonates significantly with my own beliefs; I look forward to contributing to Anthropic’s mission to responsibly develop powerful AI systems,” Kingma wrote on X. “I can’t wait to work with their talented team, including some great former colleagues from OpenAI and Google, to work together to tackle the challenges ahead!”

Kingma holds a PhD in machine learning from the University of Amsterdam and worked as a PhD fellow at Google for several years before joining the OpenAI founding team as a research scientist. After leading OpenAI’s algorithm team, Kingma joined Google Brain (later merged with DeepMind) in 2018, where he focused on generative models for text, image and video.

Kingma follows three leaders who announced their departure last week: lead researcher Bob McGrew; VP of research Barret Zoph; and chief technology officer Mira Murati, who briefly took over as interim CEO when the board fired Sam Altman last November.

Currently, only three members of the original OpenAI founding team remain: CEO Sam Altman, research scientist Wojciech Zaremba, and company chairman Greg Brockman (who is currently on sabbatical until the end of the year).

Founded in 2021 by seven former OpenAI employees, Anthropic aims to position itself as a more security-focused alternative to OpenAI. CEO Dario Amodei, previously VP of research at OpenAI, split from the company due to its growing commercial focus. Amodei brought along a number of ex-OpenAI employees to launch Anthropic, including OpenAI’s former policy lead Jack Clark.

Anthropic has since recruited more than five former OpenAI employees, including co-founder John Schulman, who left last August, and former security chief Jan Leike, who resigned in May. Many former employees cite safety as their primary concern.

Leike, who was part of a team focused on the security of future AI systems, expressed disagreement with OpenAI’s leadership priorities, saying these issues had reached a “breaking point.”

“In recent years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products,” he wrote on X.

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist, led the company’s Superalignment team with Leike and also resigned in May. He supported Altman’s short outster in November, although he later expressed regret about that support.

Since his resignation, he has founded and raised a $1 billion funding round for his new startup, Safe Superintelligence, which aims to produce superintelligence while emphasizing safety.

Earlier this year in June, 13 ex-OpenAI and Google Deepmind employees warned in an open letter that advanced AI companies, such as OpenAI, are suppressing criticism and oversight. They warned that current whistleblower protections “are insufficient” because they focus on illegal activities rather than concerns that are largely unregulated – namely the safety of AI. They called on pioneering AI companies to provide assurances that employees will not face retaliation for responsibly disclosing risk-related concerns.

A variety of corporate exits, like Sutskever’s, are reminiscent of the Paypal mafia and have spawned major tech startups and OpenAI competitors.

Former OpenAI researcher Aravind Srinivas is one of the co-founders of Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine. Cresta, a generative AI service for contact centers and sales associates, was founded by former engineering executive Tim Shi, while Daedalus, which builds AI-powered precision manufacturers, was founded by former engineering leader Jonas Schneider. Gantry, a machine learning infrastructure company, was founded by former OpenAI researcher Josh Tobin.

“You have 20 to 30,000 companies (in Silicon Valley) that exploded because more people were willing to leave the lab,” said HP Newquist, executive director of the Relayer Group and an AI historian. “It’s a core group of people who can really understand how this all works.”

Last Tuesday, OpenAI completed a deal to receive $6.6 billion in new funding from investors, who valued the company at $157 billion.