Haha! Robin Li Never Saw This Coming - His Former Employee is Now His Biggest Threat

Folks, today I'm gonna spill some major tea from the AI world! 🍉

Talking about Claude, this thing is absolutely on fire right now, everyone's calling it the "GPT-4 killer." The company behind it, Anthropic, is now valued at a whopping $18.4 billion - pretty damn impressive. But you'll never guess this: the company's boss, Dario Amodei, actually used to work at Baidu! Yep, Robin Li's Baidu!

From Baidu Worker to AI Mogul

This story goes back to 2014. Dario was still doing his postdoc at Stanford, working on physics and neuroscience - had nothing to do with today's AI stuff. But guess where his first job after graduation was? Baidu's Silicon Valley lab!

Andrew Ng was running AI at Baidu back then, and Dario was working under him. But this guy didn't stick around long - less than a year and he bounced to Google. Those Baidu HR folks probably never imagined that this little employee would later cause such a massive stir! 😂

From OpenAI Exodus to Going Solo

After mixing it up at Google for a while, Dario jumped to the newly founded OpenAI in 2015. Interestingly, his sister Daniela was there too - brother handled technical safety, sister handled policy. The siblings made a pretty good team.

But when OpenAI started commercializing for funding in 2019, Dario wasn't having it. He felt OpenAI had lost its way, no longer the pure research place it used to be. In 2021, the siblings got fed up and left with 5 people from OpenAI to start their own thing - Anthropic.

Claude 3 Dropped Like a Bomb

When Claude 3 launched last March, the entire AI world went nuts! This thing straight up outperformed GPT-4, and the internet was flooded with "GPT-4 is done for" comments.

The craziest part? Some quantum physics PhD tested it with his own dissertation and found that Claude 3 could actually understand it! And some chemistry guy said what would take him a year of research, Claude 3 gave him a better solution in two hours for just 5 cents! Are you kidding me?

From Worker Bee to Billionaire

Now Anthropic is valued at $18.4 billion, with Google investing $2 billion and Amazon throwing in $4 billion. Think about Dario back then making peanuts at Baidu, and now his net worth has multiplied who knows how many times - this plot is more exciting than any novel!

Robin Li: Did I Raise a Backstabber?

The funniest part is that Claude and Baidu's Ernie Bot are now going head-to-head in the market! Robin Li's probably kicking himself - that little employee from back in the day is now his top competitor.

It's like you spent all this effort training an apprentice, and then they go off and compete with you for business. Robin Li's probably thinking: "Was I out of my mind back then?" 😅

What This Teaches Us

Honestly, this story is pretty interesting:

• Any unremarkable employee in your company might become your competitor someday
• Can't retain talent? You're basically sending ammunition to your competitors
• AI moves so fast - today's nobody could be tomorrow's big shot
• When idealistic people feel betrayed, their explosive power is terrifying

Final Thoughts

Dario's journey from Baidu employee to AI world mogul is more dramatic than any TV show. Every time I use Claude now, I think about this story.

Robin Li must have mixed feelings seeing Claude's success, right? Does he regret not keeping the talent, or does he feel proud of his former employee's success?

Anyway, I'm definitely enjoying this drama. What do you think?