OpenAI Veteran Counters Codex Origin Story: It Was Built as an Internal Infra Tool
gabrielchua · x · 2026-09-08
- OpenAI infrastructure veteran thsottiaux pushes back on popular narratives about Codex's origins with three points:
- Codex started as an internal tool, explicitly aimed at building the highest-leverage tool to accelerate infrastructure buildout — not as an external product first.
- The Meta vs non-Meta framing isn't enlightening: people joining from older tech companies were surprised by how far OpenAI had gotten with Python scripts, and wanted to scale further.
- OpenAI wasn't just waiting for AGI: substantial infrastructure and internal tooling were built over the past few years.
- The reply offers a firsthand view of OpenAI's internal engineering culture amid an ongoing discussion sparked by Gergely Orosz.
Related event: Ex-OpenAI Engineer Disputes Popular Codex Origin Story(2 posts)→
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