Understanding Anthropic: Why a Different Company?

Diabolikss.com | Everything is Possible with Claude Series — Episode 2

January 2021. San Francisco.

Seven people decide to leave the world’s most valuable AI company. These are not ordinary employees. One holds the title of VP of Research. Another is VP of Operations. The rest are senior researchers who helped write GPT-3.

They will name their destination Anthropic. And they will build it on principles very different from what they left behind.

Understanding this story is essential for understanding Claude.

The Real Reason for the Split

Dario Amodei wrote a long internal memo at OpenAI in late 2020.

The summary: As AI was accelerating, the company was not allocating sufficient resources or priority to safety research. Commercial pressures were affecting safety evaluations. The trajectory was not sustainable.

This view did not align with OpenAI leadership. The result: Dario, his sister Daniela, and five colleagues resigned.