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Mysten Labs co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Sam Blackshear is leaving the Sui developer to join Anthropic, where he will work on defensive-security research.
Blackshear announced the move on August 5, saying the position would allow him to return to hands-on technical work as artificial intelligence changes the balance between software attackers and defenders. He did not disclose his start date, reporting line or specific research assignment.
Evan Cheng Takes Over Mysten’s Technical Direction
Mysten Labs co-founder and Chief Executive Evan Cheng will set the company’s technical vision after Blackshear steps down.
Mysten has not named a replacement CTO or said whether it intends to fill the role. The company also has not published a separate succession announcement detailing how Blackshear’s current responsibilities will be distributed.
Blackshear said he will remain a close adviser to Mysten and continue assisting developers across the Sui ecosystem. The arrangement keeps him connected to the company and blockchain network he helped create.
Move Creator Plans to Support a New Foundation
Blackshear created the Move programming language while working on Meta’s Libra and Diem projects. He co-founded Mysten Labs in 2021 with former Meta executives Evan Cheng, Adeniyi Abiodun, Kostas Chalkias and George Danezis.
Move later became the primary smart contract language used by Sui and has also been adopted by other blockchain projects. Blackshear said a Move Foundation is “in the works” and that he hopes to remain involved. No launch date, leadership structure, governance model or funding plan has been announced.
Anthropic Role Builds on Blackshear’s AI Security Work
Blackshear’s move comes as Anthropic expands Project Glasswing, a defensive-security initiative launched in April to help companies and open-source maintainers find and repair software vulnerabilities using Claude Mythos Preview.
Anthropic said the model and participating organizations had identified thousands of high- or critical-severity flaws. The company expanded the initiative in June to approximately 150 additional organizations.
Blackshear had already tested AI-assisted security work at Mysten. During an April discussion, he said Claude helped port a static-analysis tool to Move and flag potential vulnerabilities much faster than the previous manual process.
Anthropic has not detailed Blackshear’s team or research agenda, while Mysten has not announced who will succeed him as CTO.
