{"id":241101,"date":"2026-05-19T15:43:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/19\/openai-co-founder-andrej-karpathy-joins-anthropics-pre-training-team-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:43:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:43:04","slug":"openai-co-founder-andrej-karpathy-joins-anthropics-pre-training-team-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/19\/openai-co-founder-andrej-karpathy-joins-anthropics-pre-training-team-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic’s pre-training team | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Andrej Karpathy, the AI researcher who co-founded and formerly worked at OpenAI and previously led AI at Tesla, has joined Anthropic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve joined Anthropic,\u201d Karpathy posted on X<\/a> Tuesday. \u201cI think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Personal update: I’ve joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) May 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Karpathy started this week at Anthropic, where he is working on pre-training under team lead Nick Joseph. Pre-training is responsible for the large-scale training runs that give Claude its core knowledge and capabilities, according to the company. It\u2019s also one of the most expensive, compute-intensive phases of building a frontier model.<\/p>\n

An Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch that Karpathy will start a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pre-training research.<\/p>\n

Karpathy is one of the few researchers who can bridge the gap between LLM theory and large-scale training practice. Tapping him to build such a team is a clear sign from Anthropic that it believes AI-assisted research, rather than pure compute, is how it stays competitive with OpenAI and Google. <\/p>\n

While at OpenAI, Karpathy focused on deep learning and computer vision until he departed in 2017 to join Tesla. He led Tesla\u2019s Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot programs before leaving in 2022.
He then went back to OpenAI for one year before leaving again in 2024 to start Eureka Labs<\/a>, a startup dedicated to applying AI assistants to education.<\/p>\n

Karpathy hasn\u2019t shared many updates on Eureka Labs since its launch, and it\u2019s not clear if the renowned researcher will continue with the startup. He has also taught an online course called\u00a0Neural Networks: Zero to Hero<\/a>\u00a0that helps students learn to build neural networks from scratch in code, and has a\u00a0YouTube channel<\/a>\u00a0where he semi-regularly posts lectures on LLMs and AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time,\u201d Karpathy said. <\/p>\n

TechCrunch has reached out to Karpathy for comment. <\/p>\n

Separately, Anthropic has also brought on Chris Rohlf<\/a> to its frontier red team, which stress-tests advanced AI models against severe threats. Rohlf is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry with more than 20 years of experience. He previously worked at Yahoo\u2019s well-respected cybersecurity team known as \u201cThe Paranoids,\u201d and more recently at Meta, where he worked for six years before joining Anthropic. Rohlf was also a fellow at Georgetown\u2019s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, where he worked on the CyberAI project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a real opportunity in front of us to dramatically improve cyber security with AI,\u201d Rohlf said in a post on X<\/a>. \u201cI can\u2019t think of a better company or team to join at this critical moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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