Anthropic has lost three employees tied to Claude Code within ten days, bringing a wave of departures to one of the company’s most important products. Thariq Shihipar, Anthony Morris and Cat Wu worked on the development and product management of the AI coding tool.
Wu announced her departure on November 3 and said October 30 was her last day at Anthropic. Shihipar and Morris announced that they had left the company on October 24, creating a short gap between all three exits.
The timing stands out because Claude Code has moved from an internal experiment to a major part of Anthropic’s AI coding business. The departures also come as Anthropic prepares for a potential public listing, adding attention to changes among the people who helped shape the product.
From Small Tool to Autonomous Coding System
Wu served as head of product for Claude Code and was one of its two top leaders and public advocates alongside Boris Cherny, the product’s original creator. She joined Anthropic in 2024 after testing an early version of Claude Code, an experience she described as the reason she joined the company.
“Two years ago, when Claude Code was a small internal tool, I asked it to build an RL env. I steered it for tens of hours but never manually wrote a line of code. It worked, I was hooked, and I joined the team,” she wrote.
Wu said Claude Code changed considerably after those early days. Users once manually approved most permission requests, while Claude mainly answered questions and wrote tests. The product now handles broader coding work with less direct supervision.
“Today, the default is trusting Claude’s judgment to auto-approve. Claude does large migrations and builds new products,” Wu wrote.
Her responsibilities extended beyond Claude Code. Wu also oversaw Cowork, Anthropic’s AI tool for tasks beyond software development, and worked with teams across marketing, sales and finance. She also helped hire product managers for the company.
Wu thanked the Claude Code team and its users in her departure announcement. She did not say what prompted her exit, and Anthropic confirmed that she had left the company.
Two Other Departures and a Product at Scale
Shihipar said he had spent more than a year working on Claude Code before leaving Anthropic. He did not disclose his next move, but said he wanted to take a break before starting something new.
“I’ve left Anthropic after more than a year of working on Claude Code and seeing it scale larger than I ever imagined,” he wrote.
Morris created Claude Code’s desktop application, which lets developers work with AI coding agents through a graphical interface. He said he built the desktop product because he believes everyone can be a builder, and credited user feature requests and bug reports with helping shape it.
“I created Claude Code on desktop because I believe everyone can be a builder,” Morris wrote.
He also described the personal cost of leaving the project. “Walking away from my best friends, a product I poured my heart into, and the mission was the hardest thing I’ve done in my career,” he wrote. Morris said he would share his next plans soon and that user feedback had impacted millions of lives.
The reasons behind the three departures remain unclear. Shihipar mentioned wanting a break, while Wu and Morris did not disclose comparable details in the facts surrounding their exits.
Why Claude Code Matters to Anthropic
Anthropic released Claude Code in research preview in February 2025. The tool lets developers delegate tasks to AI agents, including writing and modifying code, running commands and handling software development workflows.
Anthropic said in February that Claude Code had crossed a $2.5 billion annualised revenue run rate. The product has also helped the company compete with OpenAI’s Codex and other AI coding tools, making the team’s departures more important than a routine staff change.
Claude Code’s growth reflects a shift in how Anthropic describes AI coding products. The tool began as a small internal project, but it now supports large migrations, new product development and desktop-based work with AI coding agents. That expanded role places the product at the center of Anthropic’s coding business.
Anthropic is also preparing for a potential public listing. In an amended S-1 filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on November 2, the company reported $16.96 billion in revenue for the September quarter, up 47% from the previous quarter.
That business momentum gives the departures extra weight, even though the company has confirmed Wu’s exit and the three employees have shared no single explanation for leaving. Claude Code continues to represent a major product, revenue stream and competitive tool for Anthropic, while the people who helped build it move on at the same time.
Based on
- Three Members Behind Claude Code Leave Anthropic Within 10 Days — analyticsindiamag.com
- Cat Wu, a face of the blockbuster app Claude Code, leaves Anthropic — africa.businessinsider.com
- Anthropic’s Internal AI Usage Now Exceeds Employee Compensation – Business Insider — businessinsider.com
- How Anthropic could hit a potentially dangerous AI milestone without realising | The Independent — independent.co.uk
- Anthropic CEO once flagged the risk of AI becoming “too autonomous” — fortune.com
