source: techcrunch ai: already rich, already successful, why the last wave of tech winners is grinding again
level: business
a pattern is emerging among people who have already made it big. they are rolling up their sleeves again, seemingly out of fear of missing ai's defining moment and the allure of making even more money. tom blomfield, who co-founded gocardless and monzo, announced he is taking a leave from y combinator to join anthropic's compute team as a member of technical staff, not an executive.
others are making similar moves. instagram co-founder mike krieger joined anthropic as chief product officer in 2024. andrej karpathy, a founding member of openai, joined anthropic's pre-training team in may. chamath palihapitiya took his first full-time operating role in over a decade as ceo of his enterprise ai coding startup, 8090 labs, which raised $135 million. eric wu, former opendoor ceo, launched navigateai, an ai copilot for construction workers, with $25 million in seed funding.
the clearest sign of this trend is the job title itself. 'member of technical staff' is the flat, non-hierarchical label used by anthropic and openai for nearly everyone on their technical teams, regardless of seniority. blomfield and peter bailis, who left his cto role at workday after less than a year, both took this title at anthropic. these moves show a willingness to step back from leadership to work directly on ai technology.
why it matters: this trend signals that ai is seen as a once-in-a-generation opportunity, attracting top talent who prioritize hands-on technical work over traditional executive roles.
source: techcrunch ai: already rich, already successful, why the last wave of tech winners is grinding again