Tom Blomfield, co-founder of British digital bank Monzo, is leaving Y Combinator to join Anthropic’s compute team. His new role places him alongside Tom Brown at Anthropic, which is actively competing for AI talent in a rapidly evolving industry.
Blomfield announced his departure from Y Combinator, where he has served as a general partner since 2023, in a post on X. He will hold the title of member of technical staff at Anthropic, a designation given to its senior hires.
Anthropic is reportedly offering base salaries exceeding $1 million for some technical staff. The company is also preparing for a potential IPO this fall, with a valuation estimated at $965 billion as of May 2026.
In a statement, Blomfield emphasized the significance of compute availability, which is critical for training and running AI systems. His hiring follows a trend at Anthropic of attracting high-profile talent, including OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, who joined earlier in 2026.
Anthropic has also recruited notable researchers from Google DeepMind, such as John Jumper, who received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contributions to AlphaFold. The competitive landscape for AI professionals has pushed salaries higher, with technical staff members reporting base salaries of $1.12 million and $1.38 million, excluding bonuses and stock options.
The starting salary for a member of technical staff at Anthropic is set at $133,952, while managerial roles can earn up to $850,000 and reinforcement learning researchers can make as much as $500,000. The firm is vying for top talent against major players like Meta and Google, which has intensified salary competition.
As the AI sector continues to grow, Anthropic’s recruitment strategy appears to align with its ambitions for expansion and innovation.
