A noticeable trend is emerging among successful individuals who are re-engaging with the tech world, driven by the fear of missing out on the pivotal developments in AI and the potential for significant financial gain.
Tom Blomfield, a co-founder of GoCardless and Monzo, has recently taken a leave from his previous role to join Anthropic’s computing team. Rather than stepping into an executive position, he’ll be contributing as a member of the technical staff.
Blomfield is not alone in his decision. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger became Anthropic’s Chief Product Officer in 2024. Additionally, Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI and previous leader of AI at Tesla, joined the pre-training team at Anthropic in May, likening his move to Blomfield’s by emphasizing the importance of the upcoming years in the world of large language models.
On the other end, Chamath Palihapitiya, known as the “SPAC King” and who has primarily been involved in boardroom discussions since his departure from Facebook in 2011, has embraced a full-time role again. He recently announced his position as CEO of 8090 Labs, an AI enterprise startup, alongside a $135 million funding round led by Salesforce Ventures. In a post on social media, he expressed his belief in the importance of the project, stating there was no choice but to fully commit.
In a similar vein, Eric Wu, who led Opendoor for a decade before stepping back in 2023, recently launched NavigateAI, an AI tool designed for construction workers, secured with $25 million in seed funding. In a recent conversation regarding his choice to dive into the AI sector, Wu remarked that he would have regretted not pursuing this opportunity in the years to come.
The eagerness of successful individuals to engage in what they see as the nascent phase of AI is perhaps best illustrated by the job titles they adopt. “Member of technical staff” is a position that both Anthropic and OpenAI use for their technical teams, fairly irrespective of experience level, which is the same title that Blomfield has chosen.
Notably, Peter Bailis recently made a similar transition; after serving as Workday’s CTO overseeing AI strategy for an $8 billion business for less than a year, he opted for a role at Anthropic.
