AI & Careers Briefing — September 13, 2026

Two stories today land on the same uncomfortable point: the people with the most information about where a company or an industry is headed are visibly unsure themselves. The executives building frontier AI spent the week arguing in public about how fast to go, and a well-known remote-first employer swapped its CEO out and back in over four days without ever explaining why. Neither is a reason to panic — but both are arguments against betting a career plan on anyone else's confidence.

Should job seekers change plans because AI CEOs want to slow AI down?

No single executive's timeline should anchor a career plan — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's call to deliberately slow AI capability gains shows that even the people building frontier models are still negotiating the pace, which is exactly why job seekers should build skills that hold up regardless of how fast AI actually advances.

Amodei published an essay this month calling on AI companies to "pace the frontier" — deliberately slow how fast they advance model capabilities, according to TechCrunch. His plan starts with giving third-party evaluators, including safety group METR, "employee-like access" to internal AI systems, per ABC News; Amodei said Anthropic is making that commitment itself. He also called for leading AI companies "within democratic countries" to agree on "common safety standards as well as limits on the rate of unchecked AI progress," and, eventually, to "attempt to coordinate with authoritarian governments, to the extent this is possible."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed the call, saying "I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier," according to ABC News, and said OpenAI would not go public in 2026 given the safety work still ahead. Elon Musk posted, "Dario is right."

For job seekers, the story isn't the slowdown — it's that the people closest to frontier AI are still negotiating its pace in public, with no fixed date attached to any of it. That argues for a skill portfolio built to hold up either way, not a reskilling plan timed to one predicted displacement date.

Source: TechCrunch; ABC News

Did Matt Mullenweg get pushed out as Automattic's CEO, and is he really back?

Yes — Automattic confirmed Saturday, Sept. 12, that founder Matt Mullenweg has returned as chairman and CEO, days after its board voted to place him on a leave of absence, according to TechCrunch.

The board voted Wednesday, Sept. 9, to put Mullenweg on paid leave and named Chief Financial Officer Mark Davies interim CEO, TechCrunch reported. Mullenweg said on the company's internal Slack that he received the board's resolution just 50 minutes before the meeting and was denied time for independent legal review, and he accused fellow board members of having "conspired" against him, according to 404 Media. By Friday, Sept. 11, Mullenweg had regained control of the company's Slack and told staff he was back in charge, according to TechCrunch; Automattic made it official Saturday, with a spokesperson saying Mullenweg "is the chairman and CEO of Automattic, with full support of the board."

Neither company statement disclosed why the board acted in the first place. The reversal landed while Automattic remains in ongoing litigation with WordPress hosting rival WP Engine over royalty demands — though no source has tied that case directly to the board's vote.

For anyone interviewing, a week-long leadership reversal is a visible version of a risk that's usually invisible: how much governance stability actually exists behind an offer letter. Before accepting, it's worth learning who actually controls the company — a founder with board control, a founder who answers to independent directors, or a management team several ownership changes removed from whoever extended the offer. A few questions belong in every offer conversation: how long has your prospective manager held the role, and has the company had a C-suite change in the past two years that was never explained? Our breakdown of what hiring managers say off the record has more on reading between the lines. If turmoil breaks out after you've signed, get your role and reporting line in writing, confirm your vesting schedule and equity terms haven't changed, and watch for a sudden reshuffle of who approves your work.

Source: TechCrunch

What to watch

• Whether any other frontier lab answers Amodei's call with a concrete commitment of its own, rather than a supportive quote.
• Whether Automattic ever discloses the reason behind the board's Sept. 9 vote — and whether any director departs in the aftermath.
• Whether "we use AI in this process" starts showing up in offer conversations the way pay-transparency language did.