What I find more interesting is how many people have left big orgs where they had major leadership roles, to become ICs at Anthropic.

Is it interesting? They want to be rich.

I think it is more than just money. Having a hand in steering the ship that they think will change the world is pretty attractive. I came out of retirement just to watch the spectacle.

I would do that in a heartbeat if I was in that situation.

Having a major leadership role at a big company is kind of a slog. Getting a chance to go back to a fast growing startup as an IC in a way that will only benefit their career (ex-Anthropic or ex-OpenAI makes your resume gold plated) is an easy choice. They can go back to any job they want after this.

I think this might only be shocking to some people who have forgotten that many people in these positions actually enjoy working on hard things and being surrounded by other like minded people. If you’ve only worked in po-dunk startups or other companies where leadership looks like a Game of Thrones style fiefdom building game it’s harder to imagine executives who are smart, capable, and enjoy working hard. It’s pretty common in Silicon Valley despite all of the sneering here.

I think most of HN can't logically arrive at this conclusion because they don't exactly buy into the premise that

(1) (digital) AGI is a real concept, and will be achieved imminently

(2) AGI will be world (and possibly more) changing.

(3) Anthropic will be the one to do that, or at least capture a large part of it

If you buy into all of these, which I'm assuming a lot of SV does at this point, then its kind of a no brainer to go to OpenAI or Anthropic. And optics wise it seems like Anthropic is "winning" right now, so thats the lab with the talent flow.

If Anthropic actually creates a singleton, contributing to that is way more impactful than being CTO at some random company (though I may disagree that said singleton would treat equity holders any differently).

Do you have examples? Because besides the other reasons mentioned about huge earning potential and being part of an important moment in history, the not-so-hidden secret is that any management position below C-level and above small team manager is usually extremely shitty. You are responsible for cat herding but rarely get to make the decisions in the first place. There are very few people IMO who desire or excel at "mid-high level" management positions (again, levels from director to anything below CTO) - I've seen people who enjoy and are good at leading small teams, but people at the director level are either there because it's lucrative or with the hope to get to CTO level ASAP, but otherwise it's one of the worst jobs in the "stress to moments of enjoyment" ratio.

So I could imagine tons of people in those roles who would love to be ICs again if there was also a chance at outsized wealth.

Participating in the creation of the Singleton is going down in the history books. Major leadership role at BigOrg is not.

You're surprised that people are trying to capture a bag that could possibly lead to multigenerational wealth in the tune of tens to 100s of millions?

Probably because of stock options. Assuming the bubble bursts after the vesting period, they stand to make a looooooot of money on paper.