OpenAI Co-founder John Schulman leaves Anthropic less than a year after joining the AI startup

John Schulman, a co-founder of OpenAI, has left Anthropic less than a year after joining the artificial intelligence startup. 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,” Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s chief science officer, said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

The Information was the first to report Schulman’s exit from Anthropic.

“John Schulman, an OpenAI co-founder who joined rival Anthropic last year, has left his role at the startup, an Anthropic spokesperson said. His departure hasn’t been previously reported,” The Information reported.

Schulman made the move to Anthropic last August after leaving OpenAI. His goal was to focus more on AI alignment and get back to hands-on technical work—a shift from the high-level roles he held before.

Schulman is now the second former OpenAI employee to leave Anthropic. Jan Leike, who co-led OpenAI’s Superalignment team, joined Anthropic in May 2024 after leaving OpenAI. These shifts underscore the fluid movement of talent in the AI industry, where top researchers frequently migrate between leading firms.

Anthropic, which competes directly with OpenAI in the AI foundation model space, has been seeing strong growth. The company’s annualized revenue is around $875 million, with its AI models available both directly and through cloud services like Amazon Web Services.