Ivan Vendrov, an early Anthropic employee who held a junior role, chronicled his experiences at the AI company from October 2022 to May 2023 in an essay titled 'Some Memories of Early Anthropic' on his Substack, Nothing Human, including why he walked away before his equity vested. Vendrov, now a researcher at Midjourney, recounts that a co-founder posted on Slack after a sushi chef was brought into the office that the experience felt uncomfortable, writing "We're not here to get rich and eat caviar" and that he would prefer "rice and beans." Vendrov says he joined after a conversation with a co-founder about making AI go well and was attracted by the idea that serious people in Washington were watching AI developments, but within weeks began questioning whether the work matched the mission, feeling the company was prioritising commercial applications such as customer-support automation to generate revenue, fund bigger models and support further research, and questioning whether Anthropic's approach to AI alignment and safety would scale. He describes feeling unhappy, struggling to convince colleagues and experiencing significant stress, and writes in his journal that he did not feel safe at Anthropic. He eventually resigned in April 2023, after approximately eight months. Vendrov acknowledges much of the account is reconstructed from memory, that dialogue represents the gist of conversations, and cautions readers against treating his experience as a description of Anthropic as a whole.