OpenAI Co-founder John Schulman Leaves ChatGPT Maker for Rival Anthropic

The OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
The OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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OpenAI Co-founder John Schulman Leaves ChatGPT Maker for Rival Anthropic

The OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
The OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)

John Schulman, one of the co-founders of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, has left the ChatGPT maker for rival Anthropic, he said in a post on social media platform X late Monday.

"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," Schulman said in his X post.

OpenAI's President and co-founder Greg Brockman is also taking a sabbatical through the end of the year, he said in a X post late Monday.

The news was first reported by The Information, which added that Peter Deng, a product manager who joined OpenAI last year, has also exited the company.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The move comes as OpenAI faces significant personnel changes, with the company's AI safety leader Aleksander Madry being reassigned to another role in July.

Another one of OpenAI's co-founders and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, left the company in May. Andrej Karpathy, who was also one of the AI firm's founding members left OpenAI in February and started an AI-integrated education platform in July.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who was also one of the co-founders of OpenAI and left three years later, revived his lawsuit against the company and CEO Sam Altman on Monday, saying that the firm put profits and commercial interests ahead of public good.



Pinterest Plunges as Gloomy Forecast Dampens Revenue Rebound Hopes

Image sharing company Pinterest Inc beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter revenue. (AFP)
Image sharing company Pinterest Inc beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter revenue. (AFP)
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Pinterest Plunges as Gloomy Forecast Dampens Revenue Rebound Hopes

Image sharing company Pinterest Inc beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter revenue. (AFP)
Image sharing company Pinterest Inc beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter revenue. (AFP)

Pinterest shares tumbled more than 12% premarket on Wednesday after a muted third-quarter outlook dashed Wall Street's expectations for a stabilization in its revenues amid a rebound in the digital ad market.

The photo-sharing platform on Tuesday projected current-quarter revenue below analysts' estimates, as it struggles to keep up with the competition from bigger rivals including Meta's Instagram and Facebook and Alphabet .

The digital advertising market is bouncing back from a slump seen in 2022 and early 2023, but pockets of weakness remain and are eating into business at Pinterest, Reuters reported.

San Francisco, California-based Pinterest flagged material weakness in demand from advertisers in the consumer goods space, particularly food and beverage companies, which offset strength in ad spend in the technology and financial services sectors.

"The optics of a lighter (third quarter) guide will not help recently growing ad fears, and some will be concerned that food & beverage pressure — which has been isolated — could spread to other verticals with a potentially softer consumer," J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said in a note.

Pinterest's outlook could also spell trouble for other smaller ad players such as SnapChat owner Snap and ad tech firm Trade Desk, analysts said, noting 18% of the gross spend at Trade Desk last year came from food and beverage firms.

Shares of Snap dipped more than 2% premarket on Wednesday, with Trade Desk down 1.5%. Pinterest is set to lose about $2.8 billion in market value, if losses hold.

Pinterest could take yet another hit from the lack of political ads on its platform, unlike Meta and Alphabet which are set to benefit from political advertising in the run-up to the U.S. elections.

"Pinterest... gets no benefit from momentum others will get starting end of August/early September," RBC analysts said, noting that could be a "few hundred" basis points of a headwind for Pinterest.

At least 11 brokerages cut their price targets on Pinterest.