Daniela Amodei at OpenAI
Daniela Amodei joined OpenAI in 2018 and left at the end of 2020. Those two years shaped Anthropic more than any other part of her career. Back to the main Daniela Amodei profile.
Joining OpenAI in 2018
After five years at Stripe, Daniela joined OpenAI in 2018. Her brother Dario was already there leading research on large language models. She brought operational and people-management experience to a lab that was growing from a research group into an organization.
GPT-2 and safety and policy
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2018Joins OpenAITakes on management roles, including managing the team around GPT-2.
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2019GPT-2 and staged releaseOpenAI releases GPT-2 in stages over concerns about misuse, an early public debate on responsible model release.
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2019–2020VP of Safety and PolicyLeads work connecting technical safety with policy and governance.
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Late 2020Leaves OpenAIDeparts with Dario and several colleagues to start a new company.
Why Daniela Amodei left OpenAI
Daniela, Dario and a group of colleagues left OpenAI at the end of 2020. They have described the decision as wanting to build an organization where safety research and deployment decisions were central from day one, rather than to argue about direction inside an existing one. In early 2021 they founded Anthropic, with Dario as CEO and Daniela as President.
The founding story is covered on the biography page and the timeline.
Frequently asked questions
What was Daniela Amodei's role at OpenAI?
She joined in 2018, managed teams including the one around GPT-2, and became VP of Safety and Policy.
When did Daniela Amodei leave OpenAI?
At the end of 2020, together with Dario Amodei and several colleagues, to found Anthropic in 2021.
Why did Daniela Amodei leave OpenAI?
She and her co-founders wanted to build a company where AI safety was central to research and deployment decisions from the start.