Anthropic, an AI startup led by former executives from OpenAI, has been in talks with the board of directors at its rival company to potentially replace Sam Altman as CEO and merge the two startups. However, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has declined both proposals according to a report by The Information. OpenAI has since appointed ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear as interim CEO, while Microsoft has taken on several key personnel from the company as employees. This news has caused unrest among OpenAI’s 700 employees, with nearly all threatening to quit and one board member resigning.
Anthropic was founded in 2016 by Amodei and other former executives at OpenAI who left due to disagreements over the safe development and governance of AI. Since then, Anthropic has secured investments from Google and Amazon and its Claude AI models have gained prominence alongside OpenAI’s GPT series. Jeffrey Dastin of Reuters reported on this story from San Francisco and Urvi Dugar reported from Bengaluru. Dastin is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco who focuses on technology and artificial intelligence. He previously wrote about airlines and travel from the New York bureau and holds a degree in history from Yale University. He was part of a team that examined Amazon’s global lobbying efforts, earning a SOPA Award in 2022.