OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on 4 February announced that the ChatGPT maker is hiring Anthropic technical team member Dylan Scandinaro as its new Head of Preparedness. Altman said that the company will be “working with extremely powerful models soon” and require “commensurate safeguards”.
In a post on X, Altman wrote, “Things are about to move quite fast and we will be working with extremely powerful models soon. This will require commensurate safeguards to ensure we can continue to deliver tremendous benefits.”
He added, “Dylan will lead our efforts to prepare for and mitigate these severe risks. He is by far the best candidate I have met, anywhere, for this role. He has his work cut out for him for sure, but I will sleep better tonight. I am looking forward to working with him very closely to make the changes we will need across our entire company.”
Meanwhile, Scandinaro also shared a separate update on X about his joining OpenAI, in which he discussed the “extreme and irrecoverable harm” associated with rapidly advancing AI models.
“AI is advancing rapidly. The potential benefits are great—and so are the risks of extreme and even irrecoverable harm. There’s a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it!” Scandinaro wrote.
Who is Dylan Scandinaro?
As per his LinkedIn profile, Scandinaro worked as a Member of the Technical Staff at Anthropic from May 2025 to February this year. He previously worked as a Product Manager at Google DeepMind from September 2022 to May 2025, where he worked on synthetic data for Gemini.
He also has experience at companies like Palantir, Unity Technologies and Everyday Robots.
Last year, OpenAI announced it was looking to hire a new Head of Preparedness who would focus on reducing harms associated with AI, including cybersecurity and mental health risks. The company also announced that it would offer the candidate a salary of $550,000 (approximately ₹4.94 crore) and equity in the company.
The company first announced the Preparedness team in 2023, led by Aleksander Madry of MIT’s Center for Deployable Machine Learning. The company later reassigned Madry to a role focused on AI reasoning, while other researchers in the department also left soon after.
The initiative to hire a new Head of Preparedness picked up pace as allegations of OpenAI not taking enough safety measures came in from former company staff. A number of lawsuits have also been filed against the company in relation to teen suicide cases.