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John Schulman left OpenAI for rival AI company Anthropic in August 2024, while fellow co-founder and president Greg Brockman announced a sabbatical through the end of that year. The announcements arrived together, but the available reporting did not establish that they were coordinated or driven by the same dispute.
What happened
On August 5, 2024, reports emerged that Schulman had left OpenAI to join Anthropic. Around the same time, Brockman said he would step away from OpenAI on an extended sabbatical through the end of 2024.
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Those descriptions represent different employment statuses. Schulman changed employers; Brockman announced temporary leave rather than a resignation. OpenAI also confirmed that Peter Deng, a product leader who had joined the company in 2023 after senior roles at Meta, Uber and Airtable, had departed earlier. TechCrunch reported the announcements and OpenAI’s confirmations.
Why John Schulman left OpenAI
Schulman said he wanted to deepen his focus on AI alignment and return to more hands-on technical research. He described Anthropic as an opportunity to gain new perspectives and work alongside researchers focused on subjects that interested him.
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He also said the decision was personal and was not prompted by a lack of support for alignment research at OpenAI. That distinction matters: his stated reason does not establish that he left as a protest against OpenAI’s safety policies or culture. Contemporary reporting quoted and paraphrased Schulman’s explanation.
Who is John Schulman?
Schulman was an OpenAI co-founder and a prominent researcher in reinforcement learning and post-training. He played a major role in work on training models to follow human instructions, including reinforcement-learning efforts associated with ChatGPT’s development.
By 2024, he was closely associated with OpenAI’s alignment-science and post-training work and was on the company’s recently formed safety committee, according to contemporary coverage. It is more accurate to describe him as a major contributor and leader than as the sole creator of ChatGPT. His personal website provides additional information about his research career.
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Why the move mattered
AI alignment broadly concerns efforts to make AI systems behave in ways consistent with intended goals, instructions and human values. It overlaps with, but is not identical to, model post-training, safety governance and the broader label “AI safety.”
Schulman’s move mattered because it transferred a senior researcher with substantial post-training and alignment experience from one leading AI laboratory to a direct competitor. Anthropic itself was founded by former OpenAI personnel, making the move part of a wider competition for scarce technical talent.
The episode raised practical questions about whether frontier-AI companies can retain researchers whose work spans both capability development and safety. But the available reporting does not show that Schulman’s departure by itself materially changed either company’s technical position.
What Greg Brockman announced
Brockman said he was taking a sabbatical through the end of 2024 after nine years at OpenAI. He described the break as time to “relax and recharge” and said the company’s mission remained unfinished.
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Were Schulman’s departure and Brockman’s sabbatical connected?
There was no public evidence that the two events were directly connected. Their timing made them look like a combined leadership shock, particularly because both men were co-founders and Brockman was president. However, The Information reported that the moves appeared unrelated.
The public explanations also pointed in different directions. Schulman described a personal decision to concentrate more deeply on alignment and technical research, while Brockman framed his announcement as a break after years of work. Those statements do not prove that no connection existed, but they provide no basis for presenting a shared cause as fact.
The broader OpenAI leadership context
The announcements came during a period of continued personnel turnover at OpenAI. The company was still dealing with the aftermath of the November 2023 leadership crisis involving Sam Altman and Brockman. In a later review, OpenAI said Altman and Brockman would continue to lead the company. OpenAI published the review’s conclusion.
That context helps explain why new departures attracted intense attention, but it does not establish that every personnel change had the same cause. In the August 2024 episode, the reporting specifically indicated that Schulman’s move, Brockman’s sabbatical and Deng’s earlier departure appeared unrelated.
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How many original OpenAI founders remained?
According to contemporary TechCrunch coverage, Schulman’s departure left three of OpenAI’s 11 original founders at the company: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Wojciech Zaremba.
That was an August 2024 snapshot, not a current headcount or a reliable statement about OpenAI’s founders in 2026. Organizational figures of this kind are time-sensitive and should be dated whenever they are used.
What happened afterward?
What the episode does—and does not—show
- It does show that a prominent OpenAI co-founder and alignment researcher moved to Anthropic, highlighting competition for senior AI talent.
- It does show that OpenAI’s president temporarily stepped away after nine years at the company.
- It does not show that Brockman resigned in August 2024.
- It does not show that Schulman left because OpenAI abandoned AI safety or refused to support alignment research.
- It does not show that the two announcements were coordinated or had a single shared cause.
The most accurate reading is therefore narrower than the initial headlines suggested: Schulman changed companies to pursue a deeper alignment and research focus, while Brockman took a temporary sabbatical. Together, the announcements underscored OpenAI’s leadership and retention pressures, but the public record did not establish one unified explanation for them.
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