Is OpenAI in talks with Anthropic to recruit a CEO and persuade them to merge?

The Information cited sources familiar with the matter reporting that the board of OpenAI has approached Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to persuade him to take over as CEO from Sam Altman, and the two parties have also explored potential merger options.

Anthropic Founded by Former OpenAI Personnel

Anthropic was established in 2021 by Dario Amodei, the founder and CEO, who was previously a researcher at OpenAI. Due to disagreements on the company's direction, Amodei believed that Microsoft's initial investment three years ago would make OpenAI more commercialized, deviating from the security requirements of AI. As a result, he left the team and founded Anthropic. The AI chatbot developed by Anthropic, named Claude AI, is claimed to be comparable to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

According to reports, after OpenAI dismissed CEO Sam Altman, they approached Dario Amodei to discuss the possibility of him taking over the CEO position, but Amodei promptly declined citing his position at Anthropic.

Subsequently, OpenAI announced the appointment of former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear as the new CEO. Shear will succeed former CEO Sam Altman and lead OpenAI to face new challenges.

New OpenAI CEO Emmett Shear: Dismissing Sam Altman was not based on AI security risks

Anthropic Attracts Investments from Google and Amazon

At the end of 2022, Anthropic raised over $700 million, including $580 million from SBF, the founder of bankrupt exchange FTX, as well as investments from Google, South Korea's SK Telecom, and Amazon. In late October of this year, Anthropic confirmed an additional $2 billion funding from Google.

According to Crunchbase data, Anthropic has raised a total of $3.3 billion to date, including $1.25 billion from Amazon and a recent $500 million investment commitment from Google, which includes $500 million in upfront cash and an additional $1.5 billion for future investments, totaling $2 billion.

Tech Giants Rush into AI

With the rapid evolution and competition in AI technology, tech giants are all striving to make significant advancements in this field. From Microsoft's investment in OpenAI, to Google and Amazon's investment in Anthropic, and Meta's parent company Facebook's open-source and free commercial large language model Llama 2, as well as Tesla's AI supercomputer Doji, and even Musk's newly launched x.AI, they are all racing against time to introduce more practical AI tools.

When Dario Amodei founded Anthropic, he designed two classes of stocks to avoid external investors influencing critical decisions at Anthropic. One class of stocks has 10 times the voting rights, giving Amodei absolute decision-making power in the company. While Sam Altman was a co-founder of OpenAI, he stated at a Senate hearing in May that he did not own any shares in OpenAI, which was a major reason for his swift removal from his position.

With Sam Altman and Greg Brockman joining a new AI team under Microsoft, will this affect the future development of OpenAI? Will OpenAI really aim to enhance its influence by merging with Anthropic, as rumored? These dramatic developments seem to promise more to come in the near future!

Microsoft announces Sam Altman and Greg Brockman joining its new AI team