Catherine Wu, the product lead who built Claude Code at Anthropic, has joined OpenAI to manage their Core Products division. OpenAI’s Codex and ChatGPT head Thibault Sottiaux greeted the move with the quip “CatGPT.” Wu states her goal is to build autonomous agents that reduce user workload while maintaining human oversight. She notes that when she started at Anthropic two years ago, Claude Code was a small internal tool requiring manual permission approval. The current default is to trust Claude’s judgment for large migrations and new builds. Beyond Wu, growth marketing manager Austin Lau is also moving to OpenAI, while context engineers Thariq Shihipar and Anthony Morris have left Anthropic for other roles.
This shift highlights a broader talent war between the two firms. The competition extends beyond model performance into pricing strategies and product execution. OpenAI is actively recruiting specific expertise to manage its expanding suite of applications. The departure of key builders suggests that product teams are prioritising these roles as much as research. This movement indicates that commercial success now depends heavily on engineering talent retention.
* Wu leads OpenAI’s Core Products team
* Austin Lau follows her to OpenAI
* Thariq Shihipar and Anthony Morris left Anthropic
