French-Owen, a former OpenAI engineer, left the company three weeks ago after a year marked by rapid growth from 1,000 to over 3,000 employees. His departure was motivated by a desire for a fresh start, not conflicts. At OpenAI, communication predominantly happens via Slack, necessitating excellent personal organization due to constant notifications. French-Owen described the company’s “bottom-up” approach, fostering meritocracy and flexible team structures, allowing engineers to shift projects quickly. He emphasized OpenAI’s commitment to safety, addressing both theoretical and practical AI risks. Drawing a parallel to the Los Alamos lab, he noted the diverse goals within the organization. An intense project was the launch of Codex, completed in just seven weeks by a small team under significant time constraints. French-Owen identified OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google as the key players in the race for AGI, each pursuing unique paths based on their core missions. OpenAI is also set to launch an AI-powered browser soon.
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