The Decade-Long Feud Between Sam Altman and Dario Amodei
The personal and ideological feud between the CEOs of the two leading AI companies is shaping their contrasting approaches to government contracts and safety standards.
Reporting from 1 sources: GIGAZINE.
The Wall Street Journal reports a roughly decade-long feud between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, rooted in disagreements over AI safety and business direction. The conflict dates back to 2016, when Amodei and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman argued over how to communicate AI development. It deepened after Amodei left OpenAI in 2020 and founded Anthropic, and recently resurfaced over competing Department of Defense contracts.
The Wall Street Journal, drawing on interviews with people familiar with the matter, reports that the feud between Sam Altman and Dario Amodei dates to 2016. At the time, Amodei was an AI researcher at Google living in a shared house with his sister and her fiancé. OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman frequently visited, and the two argued over whether AI development details should be shared with the public or first communicated to the government. Brockman later called the exchange a symbolic event of the difference in thinking between OpenAI and Anthropic.
Amodei joined OpenAI in 2016 but left in 2020 over business direction. He founded Anthropic in 2021, positioning it as a healthy alternative focused on safe AI. The feud resurfaced recently when Anthropic refused a Department of Defense contract that required removing safety measures, while OpenAI accepted a similar deal. Amodei called OpenAI's claim of imposing the same restrictions a blatant lie.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.