still have no idea how this guy knew that i left immediately, a month before announcement
👀 Gabriel Petersson (@gabriel1) has left OpenAI.
Gabriel Petersson, the self-taught researcher who contributed to OpenAI's Sora video model after joining the lab in late 2024, publicly confirmed his resignation in early June 2026 via X and LinkedIn, noting he had already stepped away from Sora earlier to launch an internal team before deciding to pursue an independent project.
still have no idea how this guy knew that i left immediately, a month before announcement
👀 Gabriel Petersson (@gabriel1) has left OpenAI.
Petersson stated he left to operate in founder mode and build one last product ahead of AGI, yet the exact exit date, any successor details, and the nature of his new team remain unspecified in available statements.
He indicated more information would follow soon but offered no concrete timeline or project scope, leaving the transition path from OpenAI to his own venture as an explicit unknown.
Many users reacted to OpenAI researcher Gabriel Petersson's departure by praising his timing and skills as a founder-mode move, while others dismissed related speculation as naive or annoying.
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@gabriel1 what the hell

@gabriel1 very easy tbh. all he has to do is check on a daily basis if your email address still exists or not. every US corp revokes email access instantly to prevent rogue emloyees.
harder part is scraping linkedin/x for emails + handles which he does via clearbit like software
still have no idea how this guy knew that i left immediately, a month before announcement
👀 Gabriel Petersson (@gabriel1) has left OpenAI.

@ybhrdwj my email was gab@openai.com how would they know

@gabriel1 you can send an smtp handshake req to OpenAI’s mailservers to get a 550 or 250 response that will reveal if this recipient exists. Without actually sending any email.
Also there are apis like ZeroBounce / NeverBounce that do this for you.

@gabriel1 Did your access get revoked from any service? Might be an api leak. Or was it simply word of mouth?

@gabriel1 I believe they call it being built different

@gabriel1 is he the soham parekh of ai labs?

@gabriel1 Don’t you understand that’s the burner account of Frank Murgatroyd, retired access supervisor at Electric Time Corp. of Elgin Ill. He knows when any keycard all over the world is deactivated because he still has the password “hooters69.”

@gabriel1 he knows

Your story reminds me of when I quit Microsoft back in 2006. It was reported by a blogger that I had quit before I even sent my notice to my boss. Of course, I called him within a few minutes and told him I was quitting, but the damage was done.
The real story was that I was mouthing off to a few people at a conference on a Saturday, telling them I planned to quit on Monday. That caused some talk behind the scenes, and a blogger I didn't even know reported the story Saturday night around 6:00 PM. The story started doubling in spread, going from one blog to two, then four, then eight.
I knew I had a problem, so I called my boss to quit. He already had an inkling I was leaving, but it was still a little bit rude. By the next morning, the news was in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Things move fast, and that was back in 2006.
Now, I bet this guy is using an automated tool to see that you don't have an email address anymore, similar to what one of your other commenters mentioned. Anyways, isn't it fun trying to stay ahead of the news?

@gabriel1 People talk

@gabriel1 SF has stalkers but it’s okay because reasons

@gabriel1 There's stuff going on we have no clue about

@gabriel1 I think because it wasn’t too far off to predict it when Sora died. Sure you could have moved on to another project within OpenAI but you seemed to really like Sora. So in my mind you were linked to it too much to stay.
That’s just me though

@gabriel1 because he is Arfur @Grok

@gabriel1 @ybhrdwj You fool… Now we will know if you ever come back and they reactivate your email.

@gabriel1 @ybhrdwj ...both amazed and amused by this naiveté tbh. Good on @ybhrdwj below providing public education - thank you.

@gabriel1 Bro was in your mind xD

@gabriel1 probably Slack Connect