OpenAI mafia: 18 startups founded by alumni

Move over, PayPal mafia: There’s a new tech mafia in Silicon Valley. As the startup behind ChatGPT, OpenAI is the biggest AI player in town. The company is said to be in talks to complete the deal worth $100 billion, thanks an over $850 billion company.

Many employees have come and gone since the company was founded ten years ago, and some have started on their own. Of these, some have become competitors (such as Anthropic), while others, on financial basis alone, have managed to raise billions without even starting a business (see, Thinking Machine Labs).

In January, Aliisa Rosenthal, the first sales leader of OpenAI, talked a little about the growing network. He, like other OpenAI alums who did not become founders, decided to become an investor and said that they will join the network that started OpenAI to look at the flow of cooperation. We know Peter Deng, former head of procurement at OpenAI (and now a general partner at Felicis) he has already said.

Below are the top startups founded by OpenAI alumni, in alphabetical order. And we’re sure this list will grow over time.

David Luan – Adept AI Labs

David Luan was OpenAI’s VP of engineering until he left in 2020. After Google, in 2021 he founded Adept AI Labs, a startup that builds AI tools for employees. Introduction he finally got $350 million in the north counting of $ 1 billion in 2023, but Luan left at the end of 2024 to oversee the Amazon AI agents lab after Amazon hired Adept founders.

Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and John Schulman – Anthropic

Brothers Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in 2021 to create their own startup, San Francisco-based Anthropic, which has been around for a long time. to be accepted focus on AI security. OpenAI co-founder John Schulman joined Anthropic in 2024promising to create “secure AGI.” The company has been OpenAI’s biggest rival and has only grown $30 billion Series G, based on a $380 billion valuation in the way. IPO Rumors abound again, while the company is said to be preparing a list of people who can come this year. (OpenAI is said to be planning an IPO this year and is maybe even try to beat Anthropic to the public market.)

Rhythm Garg, Linden Li, and Yash Patil – Applied Compute

Three former OpenAI employees (Rhythm Garg, Linden Li, and Yash Patil) have reportedly raised $20 million in a startup called Applied Compute, viz. was reported by Upstart Media. All three worked as engineers at OpenAI for over a year before leaving last May to start the startup, on their LinkedIns. The startup helps businesses train and deploy AI assistants. Benchmark led the round, valuing the 10-month-old company at $100 million, Upstart Media reported.

Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan – Covariant

The trio worked at OpenAI in 2016 and 2017 as research scientists before founding Covariant, a Berkeley, California-based startup that develops AI infrastructure for robots. In 2024, Amazon hired all three Covariant founders and nearly a quarter of its employees. The quasi-discovery was seen by others as part of a broader strategy by Big Tech to try to avoid independent scrutiny.

Tim Shi – Cresta

Tim Shi was an early member of the OpenAI team, where he focused on developing artificial intelligence (AGI), according to his LinkedIn profile. He worked at OpenAI for a year in 2017 but left to found Cresta, an AI startup from San Francisco that raised more than $270 million from VCs like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others, according to Press release.

Jonas Schneider – Daedalus

Jonas Schneider led OpenAI’s robotics software development team but left in 2019 to re-found Daedalus, which builds advanced industrial precision products. A startup in San Francisco raised a $21 million Series A last year with the support of Khosla Ventures, among others.

Andrej Karpathy – Eureka Labs

Computer vision expert Andrej Karpathy was a founding member and research scientist at OpenAI, leaving starting to join Tesla in 2017 directing his autopilot program. Karpathy is also well known for YouTube movies explain the main principles of AI. He left Tesla in 2024 he got his start in educational technologyEureka Labs, a San Francisco startup that is building AI training assistants.

Margaret Jennings – Kindo

Margaret Jennings worked at OpenAI in 2022 and 2023 until she left to found Kindo, which. markets itself as an AI chatbot for businesses. Kindo raised more than $27 million, in the end to raise $20.6 million Series A in 2024. Jennings left Kindo in 2024 to advance in business and research at French AI startup Mistral, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Maddie Hall – Living Carbon

Maddie Hall worked on “special projects” at OpenAI but left in 2019 to found Living Carbon, a San Francisco-based startup that aims to create artificial plants that can absorb more carbon from the sky to combat climate change. Living Carbon raised a $21 million Series A round in 2023, bringing its total funding to $36 million, according to a Press release.

Liam Fedus – Periodic Labs

Liam Fedus, OpenAI’s VP of post-academic research, left the company in March 2025 to join former Google Brain partner, Ekin Dogus Cubuk, and start Periodic Labs. The initiative aims to use AI scientists to discover new materials, especially new superconducting materials. Released in September 2025, he has a net worth of $300 million in seed funding and sponsors that included Jezz Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Felicis and Andreessen Horowitz.

Aravind Srinivas – Paradox

Aravind Srinivas worked as a research scientist at OpenAI for one year until 2022, when he left the company to found the AI ​​search engine Perplexity. Its startup has attracted many investors such as Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, though. it caused conflicts for allegedly improper whipping. Mental disorder, who lives in San Francisco, last said a raising $200 million at a cost of $20 billion.

Jeff Arnold – Pilot

Jeff Arnold served as CEO of OpenAI for five months in 2016 before launching the San Francisco-based accounting startup Pilot in 2017. last raised Series C of $100 million in 2021 at a cost of $1.2 billion and has attracted investors like Jeff Bezos. Arnold served as COO of Pilot until leave in 2024 to establish a VC fund.

Shariq Hashme – Prosper Robotics

Shariq Hashme worked at OpenAI for 9 months in 2017 on a bot that could play the popular video game Dota, according to his LinkedIn profile. After a few years of starting data-labeling Scale AI, he launched Prosper Robotics in London in 2021. The startup says it’s working on building robots in people’s homes, which outstrips other players’ robotics. such as Norway 1X and Texas-based Apptronik they are working again.

Ilya Sutskever – Safe Superintelligence

OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever retired from OpenAI in May 2024 after it was said part of a failed attempt change CEO Sam Altman. Soon, he affiliate Safe Superintelligence, or SSIwith “one goal and one thing: wisdom,” he says. The details of the startup are minimal: There is no marketing and no funding. But investors just want that piece, and they could raise $2 billion, his latest calculations say. rising to $32 billion this month. SSI is located in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Emmett Shear – Stem AI

Emmett Shear is the former CEO of Twitch Former Director of OpenAI in November 2023 for a few days already Sam Altman also joined the company. Shear founded an AI company, StemAI, in 2024 (although it appears to have been rebranded as Softmax). The company, which appears to be a research firm, has attracted funding from Andreessen Horowitz.

Mira Murati – Thinking Machines Lab

Mira Murati, CTO of OpenAI, left OpenAI to found her own company, Thinking Machines Lab he came out of the crowd in February 2025. It said at the time (rather vaguely) that it would build an AI that is “adaptable” and “capable.” The San Francisco AI startup, which is now valued at $12 billion, announced its first product at the end of last year: an API that successfully converts languages. It recently made headlines when two of its co-founders announced earlier this year that they will return to OpenAI.

Kyle Kosic – xAI

Kyle Kosic left OpenAI in 2023 to become co-founder and director of xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup that powers the chatbot, Grok. In 2024, however he jumped back at OpenAI, where he resides. Meanwhile, xAI (which acquired Musk’s X website) was bought by Musk’s SpaceXgiving the coalesce company a value of $1.25 trillion. It is so I want to go public sometime in June which may be history.

Angela Jiang – Worktrace AI

Angela Jiang left OpenAI in 2024, after working as a product manager and public policy team. In April 2025, he quietly launched Worktracewhich uses AI to help businesses making business more efficient. It monitors employee performance and improves performance, according to the company’s website. The business is backed by Mura Murati, former CTO of OpenAI, who also founded Thinking Labs. It is also supported by the OpenAI startup fund, including many other OpenAI names, such as its CEO, Jason Kwon.

Stealth Startups

In addition to these startups, several other former OpenAI employees have launched startups that are still in the pipeline, according to various TechCrunch updates found on LinkedIn. For example, it appears that former OpenAI researcher Danilo Hellermark has been working on a secret AI startup for the past few years. They officially retired from OpenAI in early 2023. There is Also one of the most obvious in the works of Lucas Negritto, who worked on the OpenAI technology team and left the company in 2023 after three years. Since then, he has started one and has been working on another since August 2025, according to his LinkedIn.