OpenAI President Greg Brockman Says He's Taking A 'Sabbatical' Through End Of Year But Admits 'Mission Far From Complete' — Co-Founder Schulman Leaves For Rival Anthropic

One of OpenAI’s 11 co-founders and president, Greg Brockman, has announced a sabbatical, while two other executives are also leaving the ChatGPT-parent.

What Happened: On Monday, Brockman took to X, formerly Twitter, and shared that he is taking a break until the end of the year to “relax and recharge” after nine years with OpenAI.

“I'm taking a sabbatical through end of year. First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI 9 years ago. The mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build,” he stated.

I'm taking a sabbatical through end of year. First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI 9 years ago. The mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) August 6, 2024

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John Schulman, another co-founder of OpenAI, has also decided to leave the company. He is joining ChatGPT-maker’s rival AI startup Anthropic.

Schulman also took to X and expressed his confidence in OpenAI’s continued success without him, stating, “I am confident that OpenAI and the teams I was part of will continue to thrive without me.”

“I’ve decided to pursue this goal at Anthropic, where I believe I can gain new perspectives and do research alongside people deeply engaged with the topics I’m most interested in,” he added.

I shared the following note with my OpenAI colleagues today:

I've made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I've decided…

— John Schulman (@johnschulman2) August 6, 2024

Peter Deng, a product manager who joined OpenAI last year after leading products at Meta Platforms, Inc., Uber, and Airtable, has also left the company, which OpenAI has confirmed, reported TechCrunch.

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Why It Matters: The latest departures follow the high-profile exit of OpenAI’s chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who exited the company in May earlier this year after working for nearly a decade.

At the same time, Jan Leike, who co-led the Superalignment project at OpenAI, also resigned without providing a reason.

Last year in November, OpenAI was embroiled in a series of events including allegations of neglecting AI safety by Sam Altman, who was briefly ousted from the company along with Brockman.

However, departing executives isn’t the only battle OpenAI has to find currently. On Monday, Elon Musk also revived a legal dispute against the company extending a conflict that began six years ago.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.