Claude Code product head Cat Wu leaves Anthropic before IPO

Cat Wu, the head of product for Claude Code, has left Anthropic. Her last day was Friday, Oct. 30, and the company confirmed the departure, Business Insider reported. The AI company is a few weeks away from what could be one of the largest stock market debuts on record.businessinsider.com

Wu made the news public on Tuesday, Nov. 3. "Friday was my last day at Anthropic," she wrote on X. She said helping build Claude Code into "an industry-defining product has been the journey of a lifetime." She thanked the teams behind Claude Code, Cowork and Tag, as well as the tool's users. She did not explain why she left and did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to Business Insider. When a commenter asked if she would now take a six-month vacation, she replied, "post agi!"x.com+1

A face of Claude Code

Wu joined Anthropic in summer 2024. She was one of the first people to test a prototype of Claude Code. In her post, she said she asked the tool to build a reinforcement-learning environment and "never manually wrote a line of code. It worked, I was hooked, and I joined the team". Along with Boris Cherny, the tool's original creator, she was one of its two top leaders and public advocates. The pair appeared in the short demo video Anthropic used to launch Claude Code as a research preview in February 2025, Business Insider reported.businessinsider.com+1

The two briefly left for the coding startup Cursor in summer 2025 and came back to Anthropic a couple of weeks later. Claude Code then took off with software engineers late that year and drove up Anthropic's revenue, the outlet noted. Wu also oversaw Cowork, Anthropic's tool for knowledge work outside of coding.businessinsider.com

Departures pile up ahead of listing

Wu is the latest member of the Claude Code group to leave. Thariq Shihipar, who regularly posted Claude Code features and usage tips, said on Oct. 24 that he had left the company after more than a year on the product.tokenpost.com

The exits come as Anthropic gets ready to go public. The company publicly filed its S-1 on Oct. 26 and plans to list on the Nasdaq ↗ 2.55% under the ticker ANT. The offering could reportedly value it at up to $2 trillion. Anthropic updated the filing on Nov. 2, but it still has not set a price range or a listing date. The company is aiming to start trading as early as the week of Nov. 16, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal and Reuters cited by Yahoo Finance.ca.finance.yahoo.com+2