Tech Talent Shift: OpenAI and Anthropic Lure Top Talent from Fintech Giant Stripe

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In the realm of technology, Stripe has long held its place as a prominent player, but over the past year, AI research firms like OpenAI and Anthropic have been rapidly gaining ground, especially in talent acquisition from the fintech sector.

There’s been a notable exodus of developers from Stripe to these two firms. Notably, Jonah Cohen, a principal engineer at Stripe, joined OpenAI in December to focus on platform integrity, while Robert Heaton, a staff engineer at Stripe, transitioned to Anthropic as a research engineer within its security division.

OpenAI has shown particular interest in acquiring talent from Stripe’s data science team. Figures like Eric Kramer, a data science manager, along with data scientists Alex Knittel and Michael Musson, have made the switch in the past three months, each having spent a significant tenure of at least three years at Stripe. On the other hand, Anthropic has been targeting non-technical staff, such as Hannah Pritchett, formerly the head of talent pipelines at Stripe, who now heads up people operations at Anthropic.

In terms of employee satisfaction, OpenAI appears to have the edge. Reviews on job forums like Blind rate OpenAI at 4.5 stars, while Stripe lags at 3.5 stars. Reviews for OpenAI often highlight the “impactful work” culture, while Stripe is sometimes criticized for being “annoyingly political.” However, both companies are known for their intense work culture and challenging work-life balance.

When it comes to compensation, OpenAI tends to offer substantially higher pay. Data from levels.FYI indicates that in 2023, the average total compensation at OpenAI was $912k, with an average salary slightly above $300k. Stripe’s average total compensation stood at just over $370k, albeit with a larger sample size. However, Stripe consistently attracts graduate talent, and its principal software engineers earn an average of $940.7k, with the highest earner reporting earnings of $1.36 million last year on Levels.