# Anthropic's latest big-name hire: Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield > Source: > Published: 2026-07-13 09:41:31+00:00 The [AI talent wars](https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-talent-wars-google-deepmind-openai-anthropic-freedom-money-2026-6) aren't letting up — and neither is Anthropic's big-name hiring spree. The AI startup has hired [Tom Blomfield](https://www.businessinsider.com/monzo-tom-blomfield-vibe-coding-tips-ai-tools-2025-4), the cofounder of British fintech company Monzo, and one of the biggest names in UK tech. Blomfield said on Monday that he is taking a leave of absence from Y Combinator, where he has served as general partner since 2023, to join Anthropic's compute team. "Powerful AI has the potential to improve the life of every human on earth and, as we enter the early stages of recursive self-improvement, availability of compute becomes one of the most important issues to solve," Blomfield said in a Monday [X post](https://x.com/t_blom/status/2076580921398931788?s=20). Blomfield joins Anthropic as a member of technical staff — the catch-all job title Anthropic uses for senior employees — according to his LinkedIn and X profiles. Blomfield cofounded Monzo, a digital bank, in 2015 and was CEO until 2020. He left Monzo entirely in early 2021 after a short stint as president. Blomfield [told TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/20/enjoying-life-again/) at the time that he stopped enjoying the role after Monzo was no longer a "scrappy startup." He then turned to investing, joining YC in 2021, initially as a visiting partner. Blomfield is the latest notable name in tech to join Anthropic as the [AI talent wars](https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-talent-wars-anthropic-jumper-shazeer-karpathy-openai-2026-6) enters its celebrity era. Earlier this year, Andrej Karpathy, an OpenAI cofounder, [joined Anthropic](https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-hires-andrej-karpathy-2026-5) to lead its pre-training efforts. More recently, Anthropic poached several researchers from Google DeepMind, including John Jumper, whose [work on AlphaFold](https://www.businessinsider.com/alphafold-john-jumper-leaves-google-deepmind-anthropic-demis-hassabis-nobel-2026-6) won him and CEO Demis Hassabis a Nobel prize.