The OpenAI mafia: 18 startups founded by alumni

Move over, PayPal mafia: There’s a caller tech mafia successful Silicon Valley. As the startup down ChatGPT, OpenAI is arguably the biggest AI subordinate successful town. The institution is reportedly now in talks to finalize a $100 billion deal, valuing the company astatine much than $850 billion.  

Many employees person travel and gone since the institution archetypal launched a decade ago, and some have launched startups of their own. Among these, some have go apical rivals (like Anthropic), portion others, conscionable connected investor interest alone, person managed to raise billions without adjacent launching a merchandise (see, Thinking Machine Labs).  

In January, Aliisa Rosenthal, OpenAI’s archetypal income leader, spoke a small spot astir this increasing network. She, like the different OpenAI alums who did not go founders, decided to go an capitalist and said she was going to pat into the ex-OpenAI laminitis web to look for woody flow. We know Peter Deng, OpenAI’s erstwhile caput of user products (and present wide spouse astatine Felicis) already has.  

Below is simply a roundup of the major startups founded by OpenAI alumni, in alphabetical order. And we are definite this database volition turn implicit time. 

David Luan — Adept AI Labs 

David Luan was OpenAI’s engineering VP until helium near successful 2020. After a stint astatine Google, successful 2021 helium co-founded Adept AI Labs, a startup that builds AI tools for employees. The startup last raised $350 cardinal astatine a valuation north of $1 cardinal successful 2023, but Luan left successful precocious 2024 to oversee Amazon’s AI agents lab aft Amazon hired Adept’s founders.

Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and John Schulman — Anthropic

Siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei near OpenAI successful 2021 to signifier their ain startup, San Francisco-based Anthropic, that has agelong touted a absorption connected AI safety. OpenAI co-founder John Schulman joined Anthropic successful 2024, pledging to physique a “safe AGI.” The institution has since go OpenAI’s biggest rival and conscionable raised a $30 cardinal Series G, nabbing a $380 cardinal valuation in the process. IPO rumors are besides swirling, arsenic the institution reportedly prepares for a nationalist listing that could travel sometime this year. (OpenAI is besides allegedly preparing for an IPO this twelvemonth and is maybe adjacent trying to bushed Anthropic to the nationalist market.) 

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

Three ex-OpenAI staffers (Rhythm Garg, Linden Li, and Yash Patil) person reportedly raised $20 cardinal for a startup called Applied Compute, arsenic reported by Upstart Media. All 3 of them worked arsenic method unit astatine OpenAI for much than a twelvemonth earlier leaving past May to motorboat the startup, per their LinkedIns. The startup helps enterprises bid and deploy customized AI agents. Benchmark led the round, valuing the 10-month-old institution astatine $100 million, Upstart Media reported. 

Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan — Covariant

The trio each worked astatine OpenAI successful 2016 and 2017 arsenic probe scientists earlier founding Covariant, a Berkeley, California-based startup that builds instauration AI models for robots. In 2024, Amazon hired each 3 of the Covariant founders and astir a 4th of its staff. The quasi-acquisition was viewed by some arsenic portion of a broader inclination of Big Tech attempting to debar antitrust scrutiny. 

Tim Shi — Cresta 

Tim Shi was an aboriginal subordinate of OpenAI’s team, wherever helium focused connected gathering harmless artificial wide quality (AGI), according to his LinkedIn profile. He worked astatine OpenAI for a twelvemonth successful 2017 but near to recovered Cresta, a San Francisco-based AI interaction halfway startup that has raised implicit $270 cardinal from VCs similar Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others, according to a press release.

Jonas Schneider — Daedalus

Jonas Schneider led OpenAI’s bundle engineering for robotics squad but near successful 2019 to co-found Daedalus, which builds precocious factories for precision components. The San Francisco-based startup raised a $21 cardinal Series A past year with backing from Khosla Ventures, among others.

Andrej Karpathy — Eureka Labs

Computer imaginativeness adept Andrej Karpathy was a founding subordinate and probe idiosyncratic astatine OpenAI, leaving the startup to articulation Tesla successful 2017 to pb its autopilot program. Karpathy is besides well-known for his YouTube videos explaining halfway AI concepts. He near Tesla successful 2024 to found his ain acquisition exertion startup, Eureka Labs, a San Francisco-based startup that is gathering AI teaching assistants.

Margaret Jennings — Kindo

Margaret Jennings worked astatine OpenAI successful 2022 and 2023 until she near to co-found Kindo, which markets itself arsenic an AI chatbot for enterprises. Kindo has raised implicit $27 cardinal successful funding, past raising a $20.6 cardinal Series A successful 2024. Jennings near Kindo successful 2024 to caput merchandise and probe astatine French AI startup Mistral, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Maddie Hall — Living Carbon

Maddie Hall worked connected “special projects” astatine OpenAI but near successful 2019 to co-found Living Carbon, a San Francisco-based startup that aims to make engineered plants that tin suck much c retired of the entity to combat clime change. Living Carbon raised a $21 cardinal Series A circular successful 2023, bringing its full backing until past to $36 million, according to a press release.

Liam Fedus — Periodic Labs  

Liam Fedus, OpenAI’s VP of post-training research, near the institution successful March 2025 to squad up with his erstwhile Google Brain colleague, Ekin Dogus Cubuk, and launch Periodic Labs. The startup seeks to usage AI scientists to find caller materials, peculiarly caller superconducting materials. It came retired of stealth mode successful September 2025, equipped with a monolithic $300 million successful seed-round backing with backers that included Jezz Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Felicis and Andreessen Horowitz. 

Aravind Srinivas — Perplexity

Aravind Srinivas worked arsenic a probe idiosyncratic astatine OpenAI for a twelvemonth until 2022, erstwhile helium near the institution to co-found AI hunt motor Perplexity. His startup has attracted a drawstring of high-profile investors similar Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, though it’s besides caused controversy implicit alleged unethical web scraping. Perplexity, which is based successful San Francisco, past reported a raise of $200 cardinal astatine a $20 cardinal valuation. 

Jeff Arnold — Pilot

Jeff Arnold worked arsenic OpenAI’s caput of operations for 5 months successful 2016 earlier co-founding San Francisco-based accounting startup Pilot successful 2017. Pilot, which focused initially connected doing accounting for startups, last raised a $100 cardinal Series C successful 2021 astatine a $1.2 cardinal valuation and has attracted investors similar Jeff Bezos. Arnold worked arsenic Pilot’s COO until leaving successful 2024 to motorboat a VC fund.

Shariq Hashme — Prosper Robotics

Shariq Hashme worked for OpenAI for 9 months successful 2017 connected a bot that could play the fashionable video crippled Dota, per his LinkedIn profile. After a fewer years astatine data-labeling startup Scale AI, helium co-founded London-based Prosper Robotics successful 2021. The startup says it’s moving connected a robot butler for people’s homes, a blistery inclination successful robotics that different players like Norway’s 1X and Texas-based Apptronik are besides moving on.

Ilya Sutskever — Safe Superintelligence 

OpenAI co-founder and main idiosyncratic Ilya Sutskever left OpenAI successful May 2024 aft helium was reportedly part of a failed effort to regenerate CEO Sam Altman. Shortly afterward, helium co-founded Safe Superintelligence, oregon SSI, with “one extremity and 1 product: a harmless superintelligence,” helium says. Details astir what precisely the startup is up to are scant: It has nary merchandise and nary gross yet. But investors are clamoring for a portion anyway, and it’s been capable to rise $2 billion, with its latest valuation reportedly rising to $32 billion this month. SSI is based successful Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Emmett Shear — Stem AI

Emmett Shear is the erstwhile CEO of Twitch who was OpenAI’s interim CEO successful November 2023 for a fewer days earlier Sam Altman rejoined the company. Shear launched an AI company, StemAI, successful 2024 (though it seems to person since rebranded arsenic Softmax). The company, which appears to beryllium a probe company, has attracted backing from Andreessen Horowitz.

Mira Murati — Thinking Machines Lab 

Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO, near OpenAI to recovered her ain company, Thinking Machines Lab, which emerged from stealth successful February 2025. It said astatine the clip (rather vaguely) that it volition physique AI that’s much “customizable” and “capable.” The San Francisco AI startup, present valued astatine $12 billion, announced its archetypal merchandise precocious past year: an API that fine-tunes connection models. It precocious made headlines erstwhile 2 of its co-founders announced earlier this twelvemonth that they would instrumentality to OpenAI. 

Kyle Kosic — xAI

Kyle Kosic near OpenAI successful 2023 to go a co-founder and infrastructure pb of xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup that offers a rival chatbot, Grok. In 2024, however, helium hopped back to OpenAI, wherever helium remains. Meanwhile, xAI (which acquired Musk’s societal media tract X) was purchased by Musk’s SpaceX, giving the coalesce institution a valuation of $1.25 trillion. It is looking to spell nationalist sometime successful June for what could beryllium a historical listing. 

Angela Jiang — Worktrace AI

Angela Jiang near OpenAI successful 2024, aft moving arsenic a merchandise manager and connected the nationalist argumentation team. In April 2025, she quietly launched Worktrace, which uses AI to assistance enterprises make concern operations much efficient. It observes worker enactment patterns and automates workflow, according to the company’s website. The concern is backed by Mura Murati, OpenAI’s erstwhile CTO, who went connected to motorboat Thinking Labs. It is besides backed by OpenAI’s startup fund, successful summation to a slew of different OpenAI names, similar its main strategy officer, Jason Kwon. 

Stealth Startups

In summation to these startups, a fig of different erstwhile OpenAI employees person founded startups that are inactive successful stealth mode, according to assorted updates TechCrunch recovered connected LinkedIn. For instance, it seems that erstwhile OpenAI researcher Danilo Hellermark has been moving connected a generative AI stealth startup for the past fewer years. He officially near OpenAI astatine the opening of 2023. There’s also 1 seemingly successful the works from Lucas Negritto, who worked connected OpenAI’s method squad and near the institution successful 2023 aft 3 years. Since then, he’s founded 1 startup and has been moving connected different since August 2025, according to his LinkedIn.