"Fear-based marketing." That's how OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the launch of Mythos, Anthropic's new cybersecurity-focused AI model, in comments reported by TechCrunch.
Mythos is a specialized model Anthropic built specifically for cybersecurity use cases - threat detection, incident response, vulnerability analysis. Rather than pointing enterprise security teams to Claude as a general-purpose tool, Anthropic gave this vertical its own named model, which signals the company sees cybersecurity as a serious revenue target, not a side market.
Altman's critique isn't entirely wrong. The entire cybersecurity industry - from legacy antivirus companies to modern threat intelligence platforms - has always sold on fear. "You'll get breached if you don't have us" is practically the sector's default pitch. Anthropic isn't inventing this playbook; it's following a decades-old tradition.
What stands out is that a sitting CEO is wading into competitor product criticism this directly. Altman does this more than most tech executives, and it serves his personal brand as someone who says what he thinks. But it also suggests Anthropic's move into specialized vertical markets is getting noticed in a way that warrants a public response.
Both companies are chasing the same enterprise buyers right now. ChatGPT has made significant inroads with large organizations, and Anthropic's Claude is positioned as the more safety-conscious alternative for regulated industries. Cybersecurity is a natural fit for Anthropic's brand - it's a domain where buyers already think carefully about risk and are used to paying premium prices for specialized tools.
Anthropic has not publicly responded to Altman's comments. Given the source, they probably don't need to.