In brief: A former OpenAI employee has revealed some details about the company that went from near obscurity to kickstarting the generative AI revolution in a short amount of time. Not only is the ChatGPT-maker high-pressure and secretive, as one would imagine, but it also has an obsession with social media platform X and doesn't use email.
Calvin French-Owen worked for OpenAI between May 2024 and June 2025 as a technical staff member. He talked about his time at the firm in a recent blog post, hoping to reveal what the culture of working at the firm actually feels like.
French-Owen, who founded his own company before joining OpenAI, starts by emphasizing that he was deeply conflicted about his decision to leave. He writes that it's important to understand just how quickly OpenAI has grown: from 1,000 people when he joined to over 3,000 people a year later – and he was in the top 30% by tenure.
Growth at that speed breaks everything – communication, reporting, shipping, managing, and organizing. It's incredibly chaotic, yet OpenAI continued its ascent at a frightening speed.
One of the most surprising revelations is that everything at the company runs on Slack. "There is no email," French-Owen writes, adding that he received around ten emails in his entire time at the firm.
Work at OpenAI is high-intensity. French-Owen says that his team's sprint to build AI agent Codex in seven weeks was the hardest he'd worked in a decade. Others say the same: 12-hour, five-day weeks or even 14-hour, six-day weeks are common, with burnout a regular occurrence.
agree with lots of what jensen has been saying about ai and jobs; there is a ton of stuff to do in the world.
– Sam Altman (@sama) July 16, 2025
people will
1) do a lot more than they could do before; ability and expectation will both go up
2) still care very much about other people and what they do
3) still be…
A lot of people view OpenAI as a sort of Skynet-type firm that will inadvertently bring down civilization, but the former worker says everyone he met there is trying to do the right thing. Despite this, the organization is also frighteningly ambitious, very serious, and highly secretive.
Somewhat surprisingly, OpenAI pays a lot of attention to Twitter (now X). "If you tweet something related to OpenAI that goes viral, chances are good someone will read about it and consider it," French-Owen wrote. "A friend of mine joked, 'This company runs on twitter vibes'."
It seems viral trends and public demand have a big influence on future products at OpenAI. It's somewhat ironic that X is its social media platform of choice, given the animosity between CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who have been involved in several legal spats.
Despite the intense workload and the short time he spent there, French-Owen values his OpenAI experience. "In reflecting on the year, I think it was one of the best moves I've ever made. It's hard to imagine learning more anywhere else."
Former OpenAI staffer reveals culture of secrecy, speed, and X obsession
