All posts tagged: CEO

Anthropic’s CEO wants the industry to slow down

Anthropic’s CEO wants the industry to slow down

Published by skeptic

In a lengthy essay published Saturday morning, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the AI industry needs to deliberately slow the pace of AI development. Amodei proposed a three-point plan he’s calling “pacing the frontier,” and it is a striking message from the head of a company racing toward what could be the largest IPO in history. Soon after Amodei shared the essay on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly accepted his rival’s proposal. “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.” This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. On his personal site, Amodei frames his argument around two recent developments he says convinced him the industry needs more caution. The first is a sharp acceleration in AI capabilities since the summer, driven by models increasingly being used to help build the next generation of AI, a phenomenon called recursive self-improvement. The second, and more notable, concern was the OpenAI-Hugging Face …

Automattic confirms Mullenweg has returned as CEO after attempted ouster by board

Automattic confirms Mullenweg has returned as CEO after attempted ouster by board

Published by skeptic

After a tumultuous week, which saw WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg ousted from his position as CEO of Automattic, WordPress.com’s parent company, by way of a board vote, the company has now issued a statement confirming that Mullenweg has returned to his position. “Matt Mullenweg is the chairman and CEO of Automattic, with full support of the board and if you search online you can see many top executives and Automatticians supporting him as well,” a company spokesperson shared with TechCrunch via email just after 5 PM ET on Saturday evening. (The mention of online support appears to refer to supportive posts on X that Mullenweg has been reposting from his X account.) Automattic’s board had voted earlier this week to put Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence for unknown reasons. The move seemingly came as a surprise to Mullenweg, who posted on Automattic’s Slack, accusing the board members of “conspiring” against him. Automattic confirmed Mullenweg’s removal to TechCrunch on Wednesday, saying that Mullenweg was “currently on leave” and that Automattic’s Chief Financial Officer, Mark …

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Says AI Industry Needs to Give Safety Measures Time to Catch Up

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Says AI Industry Needs to Give Safety Measures Time to Catch Up

Published by Sam Flores

NEW YORK (AP) — The CEO of Anthropic said Saturday the artificial-intelligence industry should slow its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up. Without such a slowdown, Dario Amodei warned that within six to 12 months AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet. The warning comes as worries about AI grow inside and outside the industry and reports continue to emerge about increasingly powerful systems that solve problems beyond human capacity but could also go rogue and carry out other, more harmful tasks. The worries have grown so loud that the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, said in an interview with Fortune that his company would wait until next year to start selling its stock to investors on Wall Street as it focuses on safety. Amodei is one of the leading voices in AI, and he offered a plan in a post on his website to increase checks on the industry. He said Anthropic is already undertaking one part of …

Anthropic CEO outlines plan to ‘pace the frontier’

Anthropic CEO outlines plan to ‘pace the frontier’

Published by skeptic

We’ve been seeing increasingly dire warnings from AI researchers about the dangers of artificial intelligence, and even comments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that it may be time to “pace” AI development. But what would that actually look like? In a new blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei not only echoed the call to “pace the frontier,” but also outlined three broad strategies for doing so. And he said Anthropic is “unilaterally committing” to one of them. The debate over AI safety and alignment intensified this week after researcher Jacob Coxon wrote that he’s resigning from Anthropic over concerns that the leading AI companies are “gambling with our lives” while the people building the technology “earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” a claim repeated by others at Anthropic. Amodei’s post doesn’t didn’t explicitly mention Coxon’s resignation or his concerns, but the CEO wrote that two things convinced him it’s time to take a more cautious approach to AI development: the OpenAI-HuggingFace hack, and the fact that “AI has …

Anthropic CEO urges AI companies to slow model development amid fears over misuse

Anthropic CEO urges AI companies to slow model development amid fears over misuse

Published by Sam Flores

Sept 12 : Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on AI companies to moderate the rate at which they advance model capabilities amid mounting fears of misuse of artificial intelligence, outlining a three-step framework intended to pace development and create more time to manage its risks. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain,” Amodei said in an essay shared on X. His essay comes after Anthropic released a threat intelligence report on Thursday detailing how several actors had used its Claude AI models for activities ranging from weapons development and cyber operations to surveillance and fraud. Alarm about the potential harm from AI grew this week when Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, stating that the “people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Amodei clarified that he was not calling for halting model training or technical progress, but ensuring that companies take adequate time …

Matt Mullenweg tells (trolls?) Automattic staff, saying he’s back in control after CEO ouster

Matt Mullenweg tells (trolls?) Automattic staff, saying he’s back in control after CEO ouster

Published by skeptic

Matt Mullenweg has posted a message to Automattic’s Slack, claiming he is back in control as CEO of the WordPress.com parent company, according to a screenshot of the message seen by TechCrunch, which was confirmed by multiple employee sources. The post arrives only days after Automattic’s board voted to oust Mullenweg as CEO for unknown reasons. Automattic has been asked to confirm if Mullenweg’s statement is true, but has not yet responded to repeated requests for comment. Mullenweg responded to our inquiry, saying a blog post is forthcoming. When it dropped, it was about him buying a houseboat. Friday afternoon, Mary Hubbard, the Executive Director of WordPress.org, wrote on X that she was “relieved and pleased to see Matt Mullenweg return as CEO of Automattic.” This story is still developing. Founder advice: If you don’t have a coup attempt every few years, you’re not hiring strong enough leaders. — Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) September 11, 2026 On Wednesday, the WordPress founder and a key advocate for the open source community told his team via Slack that …

Automattic’s board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

Automattic’s board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

Published by skeptic

Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic, best known as the parent company of WordPress.com, has been put on a leave of absence by his board against his will, according to a Slack message seen by TechCrunch. Earlier Wednesday, Mullenweg posted in a Slack channel visible to all employees that the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Mark Davies, had “conspired” with other board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker to vote to put Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence. The message read: And the biggest news: I won’t be able to make the [meeting] tomorrow. @Mark Davies has conspired with @Ann Dunwoody, @Toni, and @Sue Decker behind my back and they voted to put me on a paid leave of absence. I voted against that. Wishing Mark and all of you the very best. To clarify @Mark Davies was voted as interim CEO. I received the resolution 50 minutes before the meeting start, and requested repeatedly for time to have it reviewed by independent legal counsel, even a few hours, which was …

Apple’s new CEO is reviving a Steve Jobs strategy from 25 years ago

Apple’s new CEO is reviving a Steve Jobs strategy from 25 years ago

Published by skeptic

Apple CEO John Ternus wants you to know that the iPhone isn’t going anywhere. Ternus threw his weight behind the venerable device on Wednesday during his first keynote as CEO, placing it firmly at the center of Apple’s product strategy for the AI era. “There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone,” he said.  This contrasts with the approach taken by former CEO Tim Cook, who tried time and again to convince Wall Street that Apple was more than just the iPhone. Ternus’ pitch is also a rebuttal to pundits who have recently cast doubt on the iPhone. “The smartphone’s days are numbered,” said one headline. “The Tim Cook era is coming to a close with an existential challenge for Apple: figuring out what comes after the iPhone,” said another article. But it’s not just about the hardware. Ternus has put the iPhone at the center of his “intelligent personal assistant” strategy, a vision that could define the company for years to come. Steve Jobs did something …

My Health Insurance Denied My Cancer Treatment—and My Humanity. So I Emailed the CEO

My Health Insurance Denied My Cancer Treatment—and My Humanity. So I Emailed the CEO

Published by Sam Flores

In the summer of 2024, my oncologist called with bad news. The news was from my insurance company. “They won’t pay,” she said. The October before, I had been diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36. Throughout treatment, the news grew worse: The cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, a second tumor was found, radiation was recommended, but would permanently deform my body. Chemotherapy would likely render me infertile, I learned in November on page 37 of a 38-page waiver the night before starting. Hormone therapy put me into menopause in December, and also made me suicidal, which was apparently an unfortunate side effect sometimes. Despite wearing a cap chilled to 15 degrees for several hours at every infusion, my long red hair fell almost entirely out by January, taking with it any part of me that still felt like a woman at all. By February, the tumor wasn’t shrinking enough. In March, surgery would need to be aggressive, and in April, it was. May brought more bad news: My initial biopsy missed a …

Former Paramount International CEO Was 55

Former Paramount International CEO Was 55

Published by Daniella Wilson

Raffaele Annecchino, the Italian-born former president and CEO of Paramount International, died suddenly over the weekend while on vacation in the Balearic Islands from meningitis, his friend and colleague Claudia Loda announced. He was 55. Over more than 25 years at Paramount and Viacom/CBS starting in the late 1990s, Annecchino rose from an early commercial role in Madrid to oversee the company’s operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia. As head of Paramount International, Annecchino helped the company transition from traditional broadcasting to digital platforms. He led the overseas rollout of Paramount+, supported the global expansion of Pluto TV and championed innovation, digitization and strategic partnerships. He also was instrumental in the 2022 creation of SkyShowtime, the joint venture between Paramount and Comcast. Known for his negotiation skills, Annecchino worked closely with major players across the global media ecosystem, including Sky, Canal+, MultiChoice, Viaplay, Corus, J:COM, Claro and Mediapro. He oversaw the growth of networks such as MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Channel 5 in the U.K., Network 10 in Australia, Telefe in …