Sam Blackshear, co-founder and chief technology officer of Mysten Labs, is stepping down to join Anthropic, where he’ll work on defensive security research.
I am leaving Mysten Labs and joining Anthropic to work on defensive security research.
— Sam Blackshear (@b1ackd0g) August 5, 2026
Cheng takes both titles, not just the vision
Evan Cheng, Mysten’s co-founder and CEO, steps in to set the company’s technical vision going forward, Blackshear’s thread confirms. Cheng, responding directly on X, settled the question of succession himself, describing his position as “CTO & CEO” and pledging to stay “close to the work, hands-on, in the trenches.”
With Sam’s departure, I’m returning to my roots: leading technical teams and the research > engineering > product cycle. As CTO & CEO, I’ll be close to the work, hands-on, in the trenches. The next twelve months are pivotal. I’m energized. Let’s go.
— evan.sui (@EvanWeb3) August 5, 2026
Why he’s leaving, and what he’s holding onto
Blackshear frames the Anthropic move as a chance to return to hands-on technical work at a moment when, in his words, the balance of power between attackers and defenders is shifting, an assessment that’s his own rather than a measured industry finding.
When I reflect on my career, I have been happiest doing hands-on technical work while exploring new problem domains. This is an opportunity to do both, and I’m motivated to work on security at a time when the balance of power between attackers and defenders is shifting.
— Sam Blackshear (@b1ackd0g) August 5, 2026
He calls Mysten the strongest peer group he’s worked with, and plans to stay on as an advisor to the company and to Move ecosystem builders who reach out.
Move itself remains central to how Blackshear describes his own legacy at Mysten. He created the language and has worked on it for more than eight years, and says a Move Foundation is now “in the works,” modeled loosely on how other major chains have split core development from an independent foundation body.
For Blackshear personally, the move caps what he describes as a run at Mysten that exceeded anything he’d hoped for. He singled out the company’s team and the broader Sui ecosystem for their support, framing the departure as a transition rather than a clean break, given his stated intent to keep advising both.
In June 2026, Mysten Labs introduced a Seal MPC prototype on the Sui testnet, letting AI agents execute blockchain payments without direct access to users’ private keys.
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