Calvin French-Owen, an OpenAI engineer who recently resigned, shared insights into his year at the company, notably during the intense development phase of Codex—OpenAI’s coding agent competing with Cursor and Anthropic’s Claude Code. French-Owen, a co-founder of the $3.2 billion customer data startup Segment, emphasized his desire to return to startup life, rather than any workplace “drama” leading to his departure.
During his tenure, OpenAI expanded from 1,000 to 3,000 employees amidst rapid user growth, with ChatGPT exceeding 500 million active users. He noted the chaos that accompanies such rapid scaling, highlighting issues like communication breakdowns and duplicated efforts in code management.
Despite a “move-fast-and-break-things” culture reminiscent of early Meta, French-Owen praised the team’s ability to launch Codex in just seven weeks. He clarified misconceptions about OpenAI’s safety focus, stressing its commitment to addressing immediate risks over theoretical concerns, while navigating intense scrutiny from competitors and government observers.
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