A new AI startup called Core Automation, founded by former OpenAI researchers, is poaching top talent from Anthropic and Google DeepMind.
On Tuesday, Core Automation wrote in its first X post that it was “building the world’s most automated AI lab.”
“Our goal is a system that optimizes and automates work, starting with the research itself,” the company wrote in a post. Jerry Tworek, former vice president of OpenAI, lists himself in his X bio as CEO and co-founder of Core Automation.
In a post on X on Tuesday, anthropologist Rohan Anil said he left the company after being “nerd-sniped” by Tourek.
“Okay, I left Anthropology a few weeks ago, one of the best places to work for a researcher,” wrote Anil, who also worked at Google DeepMind. “Jerry Turek sniped me as a nerd and started this with him and others.”
Anmol Gulati, a Google DeepMind research scientist working on Gemini, said in a post that he was “starting something new with some great people.”
“I increasingly feel that the current research paradigm of scaling models, data, and static deployments is not going to get us to the end,” Gulati wrote. “We believe the next stage will come from something different: new learning algorithms, architectures that go beyond today’s stacks, and systems that automate the building process itself.”
Core Automation writes on its website that the team is made up of people who have “helped build frontier models” and “influential architectures.”
From big tech to AI startups
This isn’t the first time a top AI researcher has left a large lab for a startup.
Former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun left the company to start AI startup Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, also known as AMI Labs. The startup focuses on developing world models, or AI systems that better understand and reflect the real world.
AMI Labs’ approach differs from Meta’s focus on commercially driven model development and scaling.
Last year, tech giants competed for top AI talent, offering multibillion-dollar acquisitions and huge salary packages.
Start-ups were also active players in the talent wars, offering competitive pay and equity packages, as well as the unique influence and ownership that comes with working for a small business.
Sean Thorne, managing director of executive search firm True Search, told Business Insider last year that base salaries are rising rapidly as startups compete for AI talent.
He said equity is a “huge factor” that helps offset “opportunity costs” for top researchers and engineers who might otherwise choose to start their own ventures.
To sweeten the deal, the startup also offers additional incentives such as co-founder titles, access to computing and independent research time, Thorne added.