OpenAI and Anthropic told staff to hide their logos — spies are watching

OpenAI tells its staff not to wear anything bearing the company logo outside the office, and trains them to watch for spies offering cash, friendship or romance; Anthropic has all but banned branded merchandise, reminds employees to conceal their badges when leaving, and has reported people trying to photograph its offices.

The warnings follow a string of incidents: an OpenAI engineer was arrested October 9 for allegedly hiding a recording device wrapped in toilet paper behind a TV in an executive conference room, a stranger at a San Francisco playground steered small talk with an employee toward his work — the Wall Street Journal identified the stranger as a spy — and CEO Sam Altman's home was targeted twice in April, once with a Molotov cocktail.

Anthropic disclosed in its IPO filing that it spent $2.7 million on personal security services for CEO Dario Amodei, and the father of one Anthropic employee told the Post his son now avoids shop talk after work because “he can easily become a target.”