Alexander Embiricos
About Alexander Embiricos
Alexander Embiricos is the product lead for OpenAI Codex, the coding agent that has grown 20x since August 2024 and powers OpenAI's own development - including building the Sora Android app in 18 days.
Career Highlights
- OpenAI (2023-present): Product Lead for Codex
- Codex growth: 20x since August, most frequently served models in API
- Sora Android: Built in 18 days, reached #1 in app store in 28 days
- Codex on-call: Running for OpenAI's own training launches
Notable Positions
On Codex as Teammate
The vision beyond autocomplete:
"A really smart intern that refuses to read Slack. It won't check DataDog unless you ask, doesn't attend planning, doesn't know what happened in standup. That's what we're building: a teammate, not a tool."
On Compression for Long Runs
Technical innovation enabling 24-hour agents:
"Compression enables 24-hour agent runs. When models approach context limits, they prepare a compressed context, restart in a new window, and continue. This required coordinated work across model, API, and harness layers."
On Quality Threshold
Practical framing for agent utility:
"Would I have written this prompt? Maybe 50/50. That's good enough. The agent's job isn't to be perfect - it's to maintain consistency and run 24/7."
Key Quotes
- "A really smart intern that refuses to read Slack."
- "Sora Android app in 18 days."
- "50/50 prompts are good enough."
Related Reading
- Application Over Training - The product focus Embiricos embodies
- Andrej Karpathy - Codex power user cited in discussion