Sam Yam, who co-founded Patreon with Jack Conte and spent more than a decade as its technical chief, has left to lead a newly created Creator Product division at OpenAI. Two Patreon colleagues are going with him: product head Drew Rowny and engineering head Shannon Ma.
Tubefilter frames the hire as OpenAI looking for goodwill among creators after a hard stretch, with ChatGPT losing US usage share to rivals, strong pushback from artists in Hollywood and the Sora video app shut down. Many creators still see generative AI as a threat to their income, which is where Yam's record building payout tools at Patreon is meant to count.
Yam has said the first of the new creator products will be previewed at OpenAI's DevDay on September 29.
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