OpenAI’s Product Shake-Up Put the Complexifiers in Charge

OpenAI is merging ChatGPT, Codex, and its API into one core product team, with Codex head Thibault Sottiaux leading the combined unit. Critics argue the move puts engineers in charge instead of product-focused leaders, risking confusion in ChatGPT.

Wired, back on May 15: OpenAI says it’s folding ChatGPT, its AI coding agent Codex, and its developer-facing API into one core product team. The company says that Codex is increasingly powering its consumer and enterprise offerings, which are gaining the ability to perform digital tasks autonomously on behalf of users. Other OpenAI leaders are also taking on larger roles at the company as part of the changes. OpenAI’s head of Codex, Thibault Sottiaux, has been tapped to lead the company’s core product and platform teams. Sottiaux was a key leader in building Codex into one of the company’s fastest-growing products of all time. He’s also one of the leaders overseeing development of OpenAI’s forthcoming “super app,” which aims to combine Codex, ChatGPT, and the company’s Atlas web browser into a unified desktop application. I’ll give them credit for sticking with a plan for two whole months to get this out the door. But the problem is they went the wrong way. Instead of putting the eggheads from Codex in charge of ChatGPT, they should have put the product-minded people from ChatGPT in charge of Codex. Codex, I’m finally learning, is sprawling and confusing. It needs a strong dose of focus, clarity, and coherence — attributes that ChatGPT exhibited in spades. Instead, by putting the Codex dorks in charge, they’ve injected ChatGPT with confusion, incoherence, and sprawl. Claude, the app OpenAI’s leadership is obsessed with copying now, is so goddamn confusing https://mastodon.social/@Nikf/116937056048766403 that it has Extensions, Plugins, Capabilities, Skills, and Connectors — and they’re all different things. You’ve let your own AI overuse turn your brain to mush if you think that makes sense, but even more so if you think that’s the model to copy. I’ve been waiting for a while now for someone to explain all of this clearly and succinctly, worried that maybe it was my job to figure it out and explain it clearly and succinctly. All of this dogshit from OpenAI and Anthropic presents itself as though it can be explained clearly and succinctly. But I’m thinking it’s all just mush that was thrown together in the AI blender. There is no there there to be explained clearly and succinctly. It’s like trying to explain the logic of a fever dream.