OpenAI 前工程師爆料！快速而靈活有如舊日 Facebook？極速擴張而來的代價
OpenAI 在極短時期內走紅並持續擴張，成為科技界灸手可熱的公司，但在惹人艷羨背後，公司內部文化到底是如何演化呢？曾在 OpenAI 工作一年的 Calvin French-Owen 日前發表了一篇詳細的部落格文章，揭露了這家 AI 巨頭公司內部的真實工作環境。French-Owen 曾參與開發 AI 編程助手 Codex，用以與 Cursor 和 Anthropic 的 Claude Code 競爭的新產品。
French-Owen 在文章中透露，OpenAI 在他工作的一年內從 1,000 人快速擴張至 3,000 人。這種驚人的增長速度反映了 ChatGPT 作為史上增長最快消費產品的地位，該平台在今年三月時已擁有超過 5 億活躍用戶並持續快速增長。
有趣的是，OpenAI 員工極度依賴網路協作工具 Slack 來互相溝通，與 Meta 當年仍然名為 Facebook 時期相似，有著 Move Fast and Break Things（高速衝刺，敢於破格）的特性，實際上 OpenAI 也有不少員工是由 Meta 轉投過去。
然而，如此快速的擴張也帶來了巨大挑戰。French-Owen 坦言：「當你擴張得如此之快時，一切都會出問題：公司內部溝通方式、匯報結構、產品發布流程、人員管理和組織方式、招聘流程等等」。這種混亂狀態在公司的技術架構中也有所體現，多個團隊經常重複開發相同功能，他舉例說：「我見過至少六個不同的隊列管理或代理循環庫。
OpenAI Codex
儘管規模已經相當龐大，OpenAI 仍然保持著小型創業公司的靈活性。員工能夠在幾乎沒有繁文縟節的情況下實現自己的想法。French-Owen 描述了他所在的高級團隊如何在僅僅七週內完成 Codex 的開發和發布，團隊包括大約八名工程師、四名研究員、兩名設計師、兩名市場推廣人員和一名產品經理，整個過程幾乎沒有休息。
然而，這種快速發展模式也產生了技術債務。公司的核心代碼庫被形容為「有點像垃圾場」，因為團隊成員的編程技能差異很大，從能夠處理十億用戶的資深 Google 工程師，到缺乏實際編程經驗的新晉博士都有。
作為備受關注的公司，OpenAI 發展出了高度保密的企業文化，試圖防止信息洩露到公眾。同時，公司密切關注 X（前 Twitter）平台上的動態，如果某個帖子病毒式傳播，OpenAI 會看到並可能做出回應。French-Owen 引用朋友的話說：「這家公司跟著 Twitter 的風向運行」。
針對外界對 OpenAI AI 安全承諾的質疑，French-Owen 認為這是對公司最大的誤解[1]。他指出，雖然有些人擔心理論上對人類的風險，但公司內部更關注實際的安全問題，如「仇恨言論、濫用、操縱政治偏見、製造生物武器、自我傷害、提詞攻擊」等。
OpenAI 並非忽視長期潛在影響，公司有研究人員專門研究這些問題，並且清楚意識到數億人正在使用其大語言模型獲取從醫療建議到心理治療等各種服務。
儘管工作環境充滿挑戰，French-Owen 對產品發布時的效果感到驚嘆。他描述 Codex 上線時的情況：「我從未見過一個產品僅僅是出現在左側邊欄就能獲得如此多的即時用戶增長，但這就是 ChatGPT 的力量」。
French-Owen 強調他的離職並非因為任何「內部糾紛」，而是希望重新回到創業者的角色。他是客戶數據初創公司 Segment 的聯合創始人，該公司於 2020 年被 Twilio 以 32 億美元收購。
更多內容：
A former OpenAI engineer describes what it's really like to work there
介紹 Codex
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