Overview

• OpenAI grew its staff from 1,000 to 3,000 in a year, overwhelming reporting structures and product workflows
• Employees rely exclusively on Slack for internal messaging, with some receiving fewer than 10 emails over 14 months
• Multiple teams created overlapping libraries in a central repository, leading to fragmented codebases and uneven engineering quality
• Meta has dangled seven-figure signing bonuses to recruit OpenAI engineers, intensifying the Silicon Valley AI talent war
• Mounting reports of staff burnout prompted leadership to offer a company-wide break to help employees recharge