Anthropic Marketer Austin Lau Says He Is Joining OpenAI

Austin Lau, the first employee responsible for growth marketing at Anthropic, announced he is joining OpenAI, following a move by Claude Code product lead Cat Wu.

Lau joined Anthropic in 2024 as its fifth marketing employee. He said he handled growth marketing alone for nearly 10 months while the company’s system was still immature. He also used Claude to build automation tools for ad management and budget monitoring.

Lau did not disclose his role at OpenAI. He thanked his Anthropic colleagues and said he looked forward to the work ahead. Lau also compared the companies’ office refreshments, saying Anthropic had better coffee and drinks while OpenAI had better snacks.