Cat Wu leaves Anthropic’s Claude Code team to lead core product management at OpenAI

Cat Wu, the product lead behind Anthropic’s Claude Code, is joining OpenAI to run product management for its Core Products group. She announced the move on X on November 5, 2026.

Wu was Head of Product for Claude Code and Cowork at Anthropic. Claude Code grew from an internal tool into a major revenue driver for the company. Now the person who helped steer that growth will be working for Anthropic’s most direct competitor.

From Claude Code to OpenAI’s core products

In her post, Wu praised what OpenAI has built. She specifically pointed to the company’s reach of more than a billion users.

Her stated priority at OpenAI is developing reliable agents. Agents are AI systems that complete multistep tasks on their own rather than simply answering one prompt at a time.

Wu said she will work alongside OpenAI’s existing product management teams, including those led by @thsottiaux.

Her last day at Anthropic was reported as October 30, 2026. That means less than a week passed between her exit and her public move to OpenAI.

Wu first joined Anthropic in August 2024, working closely with Boris Cherny on Claude Code.

She is also known for a particular way of building. Wu favors fast iteration driven by real-time evaluations over traditional documentation.

A turbulent stretch for Anthropic’s coding team

Wu is not the only notable departure from the Claude Code team. Thariq Shihipar and Anthony Morris have also left.

The timing is awkward for Anthropic. Wu’s tenure ended just before the company’s planned IPO.

Wu’s résumé before Anthropic helps explain why OpenAI wanted her. She previously worked at Scale AI, Dagster, and Index Ventures, and she has an engineering background. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Computer Science in 2017.