Anthropic is starting to feel the OpenAI effect. Growing commercialization and the need to raise billions of dollars is forcing the company into compromises, from accepting money from authoritarian regimes and working with the US Department of Defense and Palantir to praising Donald Trump. Now Mrinank Sharma, head of the Safeguards Research Team—the group responsible for keeping AI models safe—is leaving. In his farewell post, he suggests Anthropic has drifted away from its founding principles.
Throughout my time here, I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions. I've seen this within myself, within the organization, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society too.
Mrinank Sharma
The Oxford-educated researcher says the time has come to move on. His departure echoes a pattern already familiar at OpenAI, which saw its own wave of safety researchers leave over concerns that the company was prioritizing revenue growth over responsible deployment. Anthropic was originally founded by former OpenAI employees who wanted to put AI safety first, making Sharma's exit all the more telling.
