Jan Leike Joins Anthropic After Leaving Microsoft-Backed OpenAI

Following his departure from Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Jan Leike has joined the company’s rival, Anthropic.

Leike cited disagreements with OpenAI leadership over safety priorities, accusing the company of prioritizing “shiny products” over “safety culture.”

Leike announced his new position on microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter), stating, “I'm excited to join @AnthropicAI to continue the superalignment mission! My new team will work on scalable oversight, weak-to-strong generalization, and automated alignment research. If you're interested in joining, my DMs are open.”

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, is an artificial intelligence (AI) safety and research company.

It offers generative AI models, such as the Claude AI chatbot, which competes directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Anthropic’s "constitutional AI" approach aims to imbue Claude with ethical principles as guardrails.

The company has received significant investments from tech giants Amazon and Google, with Amazon contributing $4 billion and Google up to $2 billion.

Earlier this month, Anthropic appointed Airbnb veteran Krishna Rao as its first chief financial officer (CFO).

In a blog post, the company announced that Rao “will play a crucial role in shaping Anthropic's financial strategy and operations as we continue to build on our strong enterprise momentum and advance our international expansion.”

Anthropic has also expanded access to its AI technology by launching an iOS mobile app for the Claude AI chatbot and introducing a team subscription plan. 

As Leike transitions to Anthropic, the AI landscape continues to evolve with significant investments and strategic moves aimed at advancing AI safety and research.