The Strategist
The long view, patient, analytical, playing several moves ahead.
Daniel Kokotajlo reads as The Strategist because his defining act was a calculated one. He left a senior research role at OpenAI on principled grounds, having concluded the organisation was not taking its own safety commitments seriously enough. That was not drift, it was a precise, high-stakes call rooted in analytical judgement about institutional trajectory.
“I resigned. I read it somewhere that you lost $2 million for not signing an anti-disparagement clause. Yes, for reasons I'm happy to get into. But the main thing I've learned is when I go talk to people at Anthropic and OpenAI about forecasting, they're like, it's not going to take that long.”
Leaving OpenAI on principleundated
“Most of the world is kind of asleep at the wheel and doesn't really realize what's going on with AI. The companies aren't really incentivized to tell people that much about it.”
Motivation for public advocacyundated
“This is the most important thing happening in our lifetimes, probably in all of history, and it's very important that it go well. There's a lot we can do to steer things in a better direction.”
Closing call to actionundated
The Diary of a CEO: “OpenAI Whistleblower FINALLY Speaks: “AI Has A 70% Chance Of Going Horribly Wrong!“”
LISTEN AT THE SOURCE ↗THE RECORD IS CHECKABLE