Cat Wu, one of the prominent leaders of the Claude Code tool and the Cowork knowledge work products, has announced her departure from Anthropic ahead of the company’s anticipated historic Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT.
Cat Wu announces departure from Anthropic ahead of IPO
Pivotal role in founding Claude Code and brief transition to Cursor
Supervising Cowork and subsequent departures of engineering team members
Anthropic’s preparations for Nasdaq listing in the week of November 16 at a $2 trillion valuation
Analytical look at the strategic and economic dimensions of the event
Frequently asked questions
Cat Wu announces departure from Anthropic ahead of IPO
Cat Wu, head of product for the intelligent coding tool Claude Code, has left her role at Anthropic. Friday, October 30, was her last day, and the company officially confirmed the departure as reported by Business Insider, just weeks away from one of the largest initial public offerings in stock market history.
Wu publicly announced the news on Tuesday, November 3, writing in a post on X: “Friday was my last day at Anthropic,” adding that helping build Claude Code into “an industry-shaping product was the journey of a lifetime.” She thanked the teams behind Claude Code, Cowork, and Tag, as well as the tool’s users. When asked by a commenter whether she would now take a six-month vacation, she joked: “After AGI!”
Pivotal role in founding Claude Code and brief transition to Cursor
Cat Wu joined Anthropic in the summer of 2024 and was one of the first people to test the prototype of Claude Code. She recounted in her post that she asked the tool to build a reinforcement learning environment and “didn’t write a single line of code manually, and it worked, so I fell in love with it and joined the team.” Alongside Boris Cherny, the original creator of the tool, Wu was one of the primary leaders and spokespersons for the product. The two appeared together in the short demo video used by Anthropic to launch Claude Code as a research preview in February 2025, according to Business Insider.
The duo had briefly left the company to join the startup Cursor in the summer of 2025 before returning to Anthropic just two weeks later. Claude Code subsequently achieved widespread adoption among software engineers late that year, driving a strong surge in Anthropic’s revenue. Wu also oversaw Cowork, a tool dedicated to knowledge work outside of coding.
Supervising Cowork and subsequent departures of engineering team members
Cat Wu is the latest member to leave the Claude Code working group recently.
Days before her departure, Tariq Shehebar, who regularly published Claude Code features and tips for developers, announced on October 24 that he had left the company after spending over a year working on the product.
Anthropic’s preparations for Nasdaq listing in the week of November 16 at a $2 trillion valuation
These successive resignations come as Anthropic prepares to go public. The company publicly filed its S-1 registration statement on October 26 and plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol ANT, in an offering that could value the company at up to $2 trillion.
Anthropic updated its IPO filing on November 2, but has not yet set a price range for the stock or a definitive listing date. Meanwhile, reports from The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, as reported by Yahoo Finance, indicate the company is targeting the start of trading as early as the week of November 16.
Analytical look at the strategic and economic dimensions of the event
The departure of Cat Wu, head of product for Claude Code and supervisor of Cowork, from Anthropic just weeks before its anticipated initial public offering highlights intense leadership talent movement at the top of the AI sector. Wu—who since the summer of 2024 helped transform Claude Code from an experimental prototype alongside original creator Boris Cherny into a leading product driving the company’s revenue growth among software engineers—is leaving at an extremely sensitive time preceded days earlier by the departure of key team member Tariq Shehebar.
These moves are particularly significant as they coincide with Anthropic’s preparations for one of the largest public offerings in financial history via a Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT as early as the week of November 16, with a potential valuation reaching $2 trillion. With Wu moving to lead core product management at rival OpenAI, it is increasingly clear that the battle for product leaders capable of turning language model capabilities into profitable commercial applications is no less fierce than the research race to develop the models themselves.
Frequently asked questions
Question: When did Cat Wu leave Anthropic and what positions did she hold?
Answer: Her last day at Anthropic was Friday, October 30, and she announced it on November 3. She served as head of product for Claude Code and also supervised the knowledge work tool Cowork.
Question: How did Cat Wu and Boris Cherny contribute to the success of Claude Code?
Answer: The duo led the development and launch of the tool since its research preview in February 2025. After a brief two-week stint at Cursor in the summer of 2025, they returned to lead the tool’s major growth, which boosted Anthropic’s revenues.
Question: Who else left the Claude Code team ahead of the IPO?
Answer: Tariq Shehebar, one of the prominent team members responsible for publishing Claude Code features and usage tips, departed on October 24 after more than a year of working on the product.
Question: What are the latest details regarding Anthropic’s initial public offering?
Answer: The company filed its registration statement on October 26 and updated it on November 2 to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT at a valuation that could reach $2 trillion, targeting the start of trading in the week of November 16.
