Durk Kingma, one of the lesser-known co-founders of OpenAI, today announced that he’ll be joining Anthropic.
In a series of posts on X, Kingma revealed that he’ll be working mostly remotely, from the Netherlands (where he’s based), but didn’t say which Anthropic org he’ll be joining — or leading.
Reached for comment, an Anthropic spokesperson pointed to Kingma’s posts.
I’ll be working (mostly) from the Netherlands, but will visit the SF bay area as frequently as I can!
— Durk Kingma (@dpkingma) October 1, 2024
“Anthropic’s approach to AI development resonates significantly with my own beliefs,” Kingma wrote. “[L]ooking forward to contributing to Anthropic’s mission of developing powerful AI systems responsibly. Can’t wait to work with their talented team, including a number of great ex-colleagues from OpenAI and Google, and tackle the challenges ahead!”
Kingma, who has a Ph.D. in machine learning from the University of Amsterdam, spent several years as a doctoral fellow at Google before joining OpenAI’s founding team as a research scientist. At OpenAI, Kingma focused on basic research, leading the algorithms team to develop techniques and methods primarily for generative AI models, including image generators (e.g. DALL-E 3) and large language models (e.g. ChatGPT).
In 2018, Kingma left to become a part-time angel investor and advisor for AI startups. He rejoined Google in July of that year, and started at Google Brain, which became one of the tech giant’s premiere AI R&D labs before it merged with DeepMind in 2023.
Kingma’s hiring is yet another talent coup for Anthropic, which recruited OpenAI’s former safety lead, Jan Leike, in May, and another OpenAI co-founder, John Schulman, in August. The company made an additional splashy hire in May, appointing Instagram and Artifact co-founder Mike Krieger as its first head of product.
Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, was once the VP of research at OpenAI, and reportedly split with the firm after a disagreement over OpenAI’s roadmap — namely its growing commercial focus. Amodei brought with him a number of ex-OpenAI employees to launch Anthropic, including OpenAI’s former policy lead Jack Clark.
Anthropic has often attempted to position itself as more safety-focused than OpenAI.