OpenAI vs Anthropic
Fortunate to have offers from both. TC is similar (fudged numbers below) ~300k base + ~600k equity (PPU for OpenAI, options for Anthropic) OpenAI pros: - Very mature in terms of revenue and operations - semi-guaranteed liquidity - vague rumors of Q* and AGI - May have higher number of GPUs than Anthropic to allow creation of next gen models Anthropic pros: - Currently Claude3 > GPT4. Best commercial LLM - Maybe undervalued at 18B compared to OpenAI at 90B - No shady stuff like corporate structure and Sama - Strongly backed by Amazon and Google - Team is comparable to OpenAI
Claude 3 - 1 month old GPT 4 - 1 year old This isnt even a fair comparison. But congrats
That’s fair. OpenAI probably comes up with the better model in the next few months. They do have a head start. Anthropic built a model better than GPT-4 while existing as a company only for 2 years. Their trajectory is very impressive. I imagine OpenAI and Anthropic will take turns having the best model for a few months at a time. And it’s unlikely that any one company would have a superior LLM for an extended period of time.
Not a big surprise. CEO is OpenAI's former VP of Research who took a few folks with him. GPT3 lead.
I’d read up on Effective Altruism if you’re serious about Anthropic
Looking at the Wikipedia page, EA seems to generally be a positive thing but some people/companies have a toxic interpretation of it. Any idea how EA influences the culture at Anthropic? Have you heard of toxic things?
The founders are big on it. It’s why they have outsized contributions if you decide to donate a portion of your equity. It’s also partly why they had that seemingly random investment connection to SBF and FTX. Personally I have some reservations about the movement but no clue if it actually impacts the day-to-day (probably not).
OpenAI’s PPUs are a turn off to me. 2 years of vesting before you can maybe see liquidity and only if they keep doing tender offers. Plus that $100B valuation doesn’t offer much growth potential on your equity imo. I like Anthropic’s valuation and growth potential better, though of course Anthropic’s options are of course very illiquid, just in a more known way. As for which will win, I feel like they both have good chances. OpenAI has first movers advantage, fingers in more pies, and Microsoft backing with Azure revenue stream. Anthropic has solid tech, a seemingly strong team for its size, and Amazon+Google backing with AWS and GCP revenue stream. How are you valuing Anthropic’s options btw? There were all those articles some months back about a new funding round but idk what happened. I see secondary markets putting share valuations at ~$60 but idk what strike price is.
What’s your YoE OP?
You’re looking at undervalued / overvalued wrong. It’s not simply valuation, it’s valuation / revenue. Latest rumored valuations and revenue for OpenAI is 80b valuation / 5b revenue in 2024 = 16 multiple. Latest for Anthropic is 18b valuation and 850m revenue in 2024 = 21 multiple. OpenAI is cheaper, a better deal, when looking at price to earnings. These are all rumored, public numbers, so there’s a big caveat.
$5B is targeted revenue for 2024. $2B was the actual ARR in Feb 2024 when the $86B tender offer was Done. In grand scheme of things valuation doesn't mean much for as long as people join for the mission of AGI. If there is one company that has the real potential of becoming the next Google then it's OpenAI. So if you can join now and grind it out then you have a real chance of becoming a Director in 5-8 YOE.
My take on overvalued/undervalued: OpenAI and Anthropic currently have similar commercial offerings (GPT4 and Claude3) OpenAI has strong brand value and first mover advantage. If (and that’s a big if) OpenAI and Anthropic continue to offer products of similar intelligence, I don’t see why OpenAI can continue to have 6x the revenue of Anthropic. They should eventually converge and it seems like a reasonable bet especially if Anthropic is 20% of the valuation of OpenAI.
This is for a SWE role? 900k tc seems low for OpenAI SWE, there was that guy a month ago who was offered 2M/yr
This is an L5 equivalent offer in Research orgs. (Not pure SWE) This offer is well known. Both companies have standard compensation per level. 2M+ might be for L7+ Research scientists
There are pure swes in research orgs too. RE/RS seems to have higher band. There is a 1.6m L5 dp on levels.
Big congrats to the offer! Is it possible to share what kind of onsite coding questions that openai had? Thanks.
How is the culture between the two companies?
Can you tell me what made you think Anthropic is not transparent about compensation, benefits and job? In fact Anthropic offers traditional equity (options) and OpenAI offers PPUs which are a new concept.
PPUs are not new. Look up PIU, same thing. PPUs from OpenAI are also only taxed as long term gains so add at least 10% (depending on tax situation) to your equity if comparing it to equity that’s taxed as income 7yrs ago - https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/CU2Z1wiveG