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The Man Who Quit The AI Industry

Tech Brew Ride Home

Published
September 10, 2026
Duration
22:37
Summary source
description
Last updated
Sep 11, 2026

Discusses openai, anthropic.

Summary

Researcher Jacob Coxon said he quit Anthropic over fears the AI race is uncontrollable, Automattic put Matt Mullenweg on leave after a board dispute, Apple unveiled a health app with "Health Age" scoring, and Apple Watch gained new listening tools. AI researcher Jacob Coxon says he quit Anthropic after four months, two months before his equity would have …

An Anthropic researcher quits over AI extinction fears, Automattic ousts Matt Mullenweg, and Apple's new Watch gains always-on audio intelligence with extensive privacy safeguards.

Key takeaways

  • Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit—forfeiting unvested equity—warning that leading AI labs privately believe superintelligence poses existential risk within the decade yet are locked in an uncontrollable race, a view corroborated by current Anthropic employees.
  • Automattic's board placed founder Matt Mullenweg on paid leave and installed CFO Mark Davies as interim CEO, escalating a governance crisis rooted in years of controversy over WordPress licensing disputes and employee departures.
  • Apple's new Health app and Apple Watch Series 12/Ultra 4 introduce AI-driven health scoring (Health Age, Readiness, Longevity) and on-device audio intelligence tools (Siri Recap, Live Rewind) built around a secure enclave architecture designed to minimize cloud exposure of raw audio.

Why this matters

The simultaneous emergence of credible AI existential-risk warnings from insiders, a high-profile open-source governance breakdown at Automattic, and Apple's aggressive push into always-on health and audio AI signals that enterprise and consumer technology leaders must urgently reassess AI safety governance, platform dependency risk, and data privacy standards.

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Show notes

Researcher Jacob Coxon said he quit Anthropic over fears the AI race is uncontrollable, Automattic put Matt Mullenweg on leave after a board dispute, Apple unveiled a health app with "Health Age" scoring, and Apple Watch gained new listening tools. AI researcher Jacob Coxon says he quit Anthropic after four months, two months before his equity would have vested; he still has equity in prior employer OpenAI (Axios) Business Insider reports Coxon says neither OpenAI nor Anthropic is acting respons

Themes

  • openai
  • anthropic