From a split to dueling IPOs: Anthropic and OpenAI's rivalry

Ever since Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei left OpenAI in December 2020, the two startups have become increasingly public rivals, with staff from both companies trading barbs. OpenAI’s chief futurist Joshua Achiam even framed the stakes on X with a rhetorical choice between Anthropic and OpenAI.

The rivalry traces back to a 2015 meeting that helped spawn OpenAI. Amodei joined later as team lead for AI safety, rose to research director and vice president of research, and worked on models like GPT-2 and GPT-3. Growing tensions over strategy and safety culminated in his departure at the end of 2020; Amodei later said trying to argue with another’s vision felt “incredibly unproductive.” In early 2021 Amodei and seven former OpenAI colleagues founded Anthropic, emphasizing a human-centered approach.

The company trained its Claude chatbot by mid-2022 but delayed release, while OpenAI’s ChatGPT helped accelerate the public AI race. Since then the rivalry has broadened beyond personal tensions.

anthropic, openai, dario amodei, joshua achiam, claude, chatgpt, gpt-2, gpt-3, ai safety, ipos