How OpenAI's Codex went from failed side project to 40M weekly users in under a year
danshipper · x · 2026-10-16
Dan Shipper chronicles Codex's unlikely rise at OpenAI: a year ago it lacked product-market fit and restarted from scratch. Today it has absorbed the ChatGPT desktop app (running as com.openai.codex on Mac), Codex plus ChatGPT for Work exceed 40M weekly users, and its leader Thibault Sottiaux now runs all of OpenAI's core products. The playbook: a dedicated model line separate from ChatGPT, researchers and product builders on one team, and four product shapes shipped in a year (cloud → terminal → IDE sidebar → editor-less desktop app).
Related event: Every's "How Codex Happened" Chronicles Codex's Comeback(13 posts)→
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