--- title: Two Claude Code engineers walk out as Anthropic eyes an IPO description: Two visible Claude Code engineers left Anthropic around the same time. Thariq Shihipar departed after more than a year on the team, and Anthony Morris, who... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/two-claude-code-engineers-walk-out-as-anthropic-eyes-an-ipo-leekmbkxb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Two Claude Code engineers walk out as Anthropic eyes an IPO | daily.dev og:description: Two visible Claude Code engineers left Anthropic around the same time. Thariq Shihipar departed after more than a year on the team, and Anthony Morris, who... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/two-claude-code-engineers-walk-out-as-anthropic-eyes-an-ipo-leekmbkxb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/lEekmBKXB.png og:image:alt: Two Claude Code engineers walk out as Anthropic eyes an IPO og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Two Claude Code engineers walk out as Anthropic eyes an IPO **[Trends](https://daily.dev/sources/trends)** · 3 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Two visible Claude Code engineers left Anthropic around the same time. Thariq Shihipar departed after more than a year on the team, and Anthony Morris, who built the Claude Code desktop app, said it was his last day too. The exits come as Anthropic is reportedly preparing for an IPO and amid an ongoing Opus 5.5 performance debate. Shihipar said he's taking a break before starting something new; a rumor that he was poached by 'SpaceXSI' is unconfirmed. @omarsar0 credited Shihipar's writing and insights as a reason he kept using Claude Code, and Lydia Hallie said she will miss his influence and inspiration. ## Content The funniest part of Thariq's exit from Anthropic is the speed of the transition. @rufo_ai put it best: he's one of the main faces of Claude Code, and "a few hours later he's replying 'wait is it just me or is Opus 5.5 dumber' like the rest of us. fastest dev-to-user pipeline I've ever seen." ## The goodbye Thariq (@trq212) announced he'd left after more than a year on Claude Code, "seeing it scale larger than I ever imagined." The note is warm. He says he believes deeply in the mission and the idea of "a race to the top." He calls his colleagues "the most talented, thoughtful, competent, and earnest people I have ever met" and says he's glad they are "at the wheel." He's taking a break before "diving into something new," and he pointed followers to @addyosmani, @lydiahallie, @_catwu, @ClaudeDevs and @bcherny, "who started it all." ## Not the only one According to @mark_k, a second Claude Code engineer is out too. Anthony Morris, who built the Claude Code desktop app, said his last day was yesterday and joked that he now has time for GTA VI. Both posted positive notes. @mark_k ties the exits to Anthropic prepping an IPO and the ongoing arguments about Opus 5.5 performance. His update adds a rumor that Thariq was poached by SpaceXSI. That is only a rumor so far, and nobody has confirmed it. ## The reaction Mostly it's affection. @omarsar0 says Thariq was "one of the only reasons I still continued to explore and use Claude Code," and credits him with setting "the bar really high for technical writing." Omar says he even got back to writing because of him. Colleagues like Lydia Hallie said they'll miss his influence and inspiration. That affection is the interesting bit. A tool's public identity often lives in one or two people who explain it well, and when they leave, users notice. Several people here are treating Thariq's departure as a loss for Claude Code's community, not just a headcount change. ## The vibe On one side you have a polished exit letter full of mission talk. On the other, a guy ten minutes into civilian life doing the same thing the rest of us do, squinting at a model and wondering if it got worse. Both are real. I find the second one more telling about where Opus 5.5 sentiment is sitting right now. ## Questions this post answers ### Who left the Claude Code team at Anthropic recently? Thariq Shihipar and Anthony Morris both departed Claude Code around the same time. Shihipar had worked on Claude Code for more than a year and was known for his technical writing and insights. Morris built the Claude Code desktop app. Both exits were described as warm and without drama, coinciding with Anthropic reportedly preparing for an IPO and an ongoing Opus 5.5 performance debate. _Developers tracking shifts in the Claude Code team can follow coding-tool news on daily.dev._ ### Is it confirmed where Thariq Shihipar is going after leaving Anthropic's Claude Code team? No, it is not confirmed. There is only a rumor that he was poached by 'SpaceXSI', but neither Shihipar nor Anthropic has confirmed any destination. Shihipar himself said he's taking a break before starting something new, pointing followers instead toward other AI and developer tooling figures to follow. _Anyone weighing which AI coding tools to trust can follow how their teams evolve on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 5 discussions and 394 comments across x (as of 2026-10-24). **TL;DR:** Replies are overwhelmingly warm sendoffs to Thariq (and Anthony Morris), praising his technical writing and community influence, with lighter speculation about where he'll go next and jokes about his 'Opus 5.5 dumber' tweet; a minority voice skepticism about Anthropic itself or stock vesting details. **Sentiment:** 65% positive · 25% mixed · 10% skeptical **The case for** - Many credit Thariq's clear, hands-on technical writing as more useful than official docs or launch copy. - Several say his threads lowered the barrier for people to actually try and adapt Claude Code in their own work. - Commenters frame the departure as a well-earned break after a demanding, high-impact year. **The pushback** - A few replies read the exit as a bad sign for Anthropic, with one calling it a 'sinking ship'. - Some push back on the idea that leaving proves he's uniquely good at communicating AI, calling it hype over substance. - Repeated prying questions about stock vesting and equity suggest suspicion the departure is compensation-related despite no confirmation. **By community** - x (positive): Tweet replies are dominated by praise, nostalgia, and goodwill toward the departing engineers, with only scattered skeptical or snarky asides. **Hottest debate:** Whether the exit reflects genuine opportunity-seeking (a 'good time to bet on himself') or signals trouble inside Anthropic (a 'sinking ship'), with some treating it as pure celebration and others reading darker implications. **Open questions** - Will public, substantive write-ups about Claude Code slow down now that an active insider voice is gone? - Where is Thariq actually headed next, given competing guesses (SpaceX, Grok, OpenAI, a new startup)? - Was the SpaceX poaching rumor accurate, and did it apply to both departing engineers or just one? **Highlights** > @trq212 Going to miss you dude, it's been real! > — [alexalbert\_\_ on x · 36 points, 1 comments](https://x.com/alexalbert__/status/2114048860209447147) > @mark_k Congrats to both of them. Scaling Claude Code for more than a year sounds like the most fun and most stressful job at the same time. Time for GTA VI first is a pretty solid plan lol. I hope they both build something great next. > — [Only\_21Mil on x · 1 comments](https://x.com/Only_21Mil/status/2114034262613668116) > @mark_k It’s not controversial, only a few humans are meant to stay after March 2028 or A.S.I. Many contracts now lasts months, despite being millions of dollars. People like Thariq become Dario’s or Ilya’s or Mira’s. Who once were just Sam & Elon. > — [dylan2045ad on x · 1 points, 1 comments](https://x.com/dylan2045ad/status/2114036817297391947) > @trq212 Rats leave first from a sinking ship! > — [OFantoma\_13 on x · 2 points](https://x.com/OFantoma_13/status/2114048964962193550) > @omarsar0 His last post ends with a follow list, not an explanation: @addyosmani, @lydiahallie, @_catwu, @ClaudeDevs and @bcherny — "who started it all". Handing the audience over on the way out is rarer than it should be. > — [ff\_fja on x](https://x.com/ff_fja/status/2113987169144492425) **Source threads** - [x](https://x.com/omarsar0/status/2113974749873262703) · 0 points · 25 comments - [x](https://x.com/jxnlco/status/2114005646165389488) · 0 points · 0 comments - [x](https://x.com/mark_k/status/2114026300734116220) · 25 points · 24 comments - [x](https://x.com/trq212/status/2113844051938054167) · 0 points · 345 comments - [x](https://x.com/rufo_ai/status/2113931759108944286) · 2 points · 0 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic), [#claude-code](https://daily.dev/tags/claude-code) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/two-claude-code-engineers-walk-out-as-anthropic-eyes-an-ipo-leekmbkxb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Two Claude Code engineers walk out as Anthropic eyes an IPO","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/two-claude-code-engineers-walk-out-as-anthropic-eyes-an-ipo-leekmbkxb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/two-claude-code-engineers-walk-out-as-anthropic-eyes-an-ipo-leekmbkxb"},"datePublished":"2026-10-24T16:48:21.674Z","dateModified":"2026-10-24T21:55:09.007Z","description":"Two visible Claude Code engineers left Anthropic around the same time. 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