Cat Wu Joins OpenAI to Lead Product Management for Core Products
On November 5, catwu (Cat Wu) announced joining OpenAI as Head of Product Management for Core Products, where she will work with engineering lead Thibault Sottiaux (@thsottiaux) and the PM team, focusing on building agent products for individuals and teams. OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman (@gdb) publicly welcomed her, and Cat Wu replied that she is "excited to build together."
Confirmed
- Cat Wu officially joined OpenAI as Head of Product Management for Core Products (multiple posts, including her own announcement).
- In her announcement, she praised OpenAI for proving to the world that scaling works, bringing AI to more than 1 billion people, and holding that great products are core to the mission.
- According to @FinanceYF5, she previously spent about two years at Anthropic, during which she helped grow Claude Code from an internal tool into an official product and contributed to the development of Cowork.
- As relayed by @scaling01, there was another Anthropic → OpenAI move the same day: Austin Lau (Anthropic's first growth marketing lead, who joined in 2024) also announced his departure from Anthropic, making it the second such move of the day.
Unconfirmed
- Posts differ on her background and title: most say she came from Anthropic and worked on Claude Code; @polynoamial calls her "Noam Polen," @steipete calls her a "former Anthropic related-products lead," and @SebastienBubeck even claims she authored Meta's "Segment Anything" project. Given the clear discrepancies, her own announcement should be taken as authoritative.
Why it matters
- This is yet another high-profile talent move between the two frontier labs, OpenAI and Anthropic. @Hesamation remarked that while users are still fighting over the two companies, employees move freely between them; two same-day Anthropic → OpenAI departures also fueled outside discussion about talent drain at Anthropic. The Core Products group Cat Wu now leads spans agent products aimed at massive consumer audiences, so her move is a useful signal for the product competition between the two companies.
2026-11-05 ~ 2026-11-05 · 28 related posts
- Episode 1: Multiple Claude Code Veterans Depart Anthropic, Including Early Member Cat Wu(2026-11-04, 22 posts)
- Episode 2: Anthropic Hit by Wave of High-Profile Departures Ahead of Reported IPO(2026-11-04, 10 posts)
- Episode 3: Cat Wu Joins OpenAI to Lead Product Management for Core Products(2026-11-05, 28 posts)
Primary sources
- [source] _catwu joins OpenAI to lead product management for Core Products — _catwu · 2026-11-05
- [source] OpenAI hires @_catwu to lead product management for Core Products — gdb · 2026-11-05
- Polen joins OpenAI to lead product management for Core Products — polynoamial · 2026-11-05
- Anthropic product lead @_catwu jumps to OpenAI to head product management for Core Products — YashasGunderia · 2026-11-05
- Cat Wu joins OpenAI to lead product management for Core Products — steipete · 2026-11-05
- OpenAI hires trq212 to lead product management for Core Products — trq212 · 2026-11-05
- Claude Code loses 3 key members in 2 weeks as Cat Wu jumps ship to OpenAI — APPSO · 2026-11-05
- [source] Greg Brockman welcomes _catwu to OpenAI in new team hire — _catwu · 2026-11-05
- Claude Code PM joins OpenAI as Dario predicts half the team could leave — soumitrashukla9 · 2026-11-05
- Cat Wu jumps from Anthropic to OpenAI as Head of PM for Core Products — johncoogan · 2026-11-05
- Claude Code product lead Cat Wu leaves Anthropic for OpenAI to build agents — FinanceYF5 · 2026-11-05
- Another Anthropic researcher defects to OpenAI, and the talk is money over mission — karmay007 · 2026-11-05
- Anthropic growth lead jumps to OpenAI as employees switch labs 'like Spotify playlists' — Hesamation · 2026-11-05
15 near-duplicate retellings: apples_jimmy · Baconbrix · willdepue · SebastienBubeck · Tegadesigns · 智东西 · shyamalanadkat · 量子位 · reach_vb · paw_lean · janvikalra_ · janvikalra_ · 新智元 · TheTuringPost · scaling01