Claude Code product lead jumps ship to OpenAI, Anthropic loses another key figure to its old rival

BlockBeats news, November 5 — Cat Wu (Catherine Wu), former head of product for Anthropic's Claude Code and Cowork, announced on social media that she will join OpenAI as Head of Product Management for Core Products.

Cat Wu stated that she greatly admires OpenAI for proving to the world that "scaling works," bringing AI to over a billion people, and firmly believes that great products are at the core of the mission. She will work with Tibo Sottiaux, OpenAI's Head of Core Products and Platform, to develop AI Agents for individuals and teams. Tibo subsequently publicly welcomed her aboard.

Cat previously worked alongside Claude Code creator Boris Cherny to grow Claude Code from an internal tool into a popular AI coding product. OpenAI's Codex is its direct competitor. This is already Cat's second departure from Anthropic. In July 2025, she and Boris jumped to Cursor, but both returned two weeks later. On October 30, she left again, publicly bidding farewell to Anthropic on November 4, and announced her move to OpenAI the very next day.