The OpenAI mafia: 15 of the most notable startups founded by alumni

Transfer over, PayPal mafia: There’s a brand new tech mafia in Silicon Valley. Because the startup behind ChatGPT, OpenAI is arguably the most important AI participant on the town. Its meteoric rise to a $300 billion valuation has spurred many staff to depart the AI large to create startups of their very own.

The hype round OpenAI is so excessive that a few of these startups, like Ilya Sutskever’s Protected Superintelligence and Mira Murati’s Considering Machines Lab, have been in a position to increase billions of {dollars} with out even launching a product. 

However there are many different startups within the OpenAI mafia ecosystem. These vary from AI search large Perplexity to xAI, the new owner of X (formerly Twitter.) There’s additionally smaller outfits with some futuristic plans, like Dwelling Carbon, which is creating vegetation that suck extra carbon out of the environment, or Prosper Robotics, which is constructing a robotic butler.

Under is a roundup of probably the most notable startups based by OpenAI alumni.

Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and John Schulman — Anthropic

Siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in 2021 to type their very own startup, San Francisco-based Anthropic, that has lengthy touted a concentrate on AI security.  Later, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman joined Anthropic in 2024, pledging to construct a “protected AGI.” OpenAI reportedly stays a number of occasions bigger than Anthropic by income ($3.7 billion in comparison with $1 billion for 2024, The Data reported). However Anthropic has shortly grown to turn into OpenAI’s largest rival and was valued at $61.5 billion in March 2025.

Ilya Sutskever — Protected Superintelligence 

OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left OpenAI in May 2024 after he was reportedly part of a failed effort to switch CEO Sam Altman. Shortly afterward, he co-founded Safe Superintelligence, or SSI, with “one objective and one product: a protected superintelligence,” he says. Particulars about what precisely the startup is as much as are scant: It has no product and no income but. However traders are clamoring for a bit anyway, and it’s been in a position to increase $2 billion, with its newest valuation reportedly rising to $32 billion this month. SSI relies in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Mira Murati — Considering Machines Lab 

Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO, left OpenAI final 12 months to discovered her personal firm, Considering Machines Lab, which emerged from stealth in February 2025, asserting (relatively vaguely) that it’s going to construct AI that’s extra “customizable” and “succesful.” The San Francisco AI startup has no product or income however plenty of former top OpenAI researchers and is reportedly in the process of raising an enormous $2 billion seed spherical valuing it at $10 billion, minimal.

Aravind Srinivas — Perplexity

Aravind Srinivas labored as a analysis scientist at OpenAI for a 12 months till 2022, when he left the corporate to co-found AI search engine Perplexity. His startup has attracted a string of high-profile traders like Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, though it’s additionally caused controversy over alleged unethical net scraping. Perplexity, which relies in San Francisco, is presently raising about $1 billion at an $18 billion valuation as of March 2025. 

Kyle Kosic — xAI

Kyle Kosic left OpenAI in 2023 to turn into a co-founder and infrastructure lead of xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup that gives a rival chatbot, Grok. In 2024, nevertheless, he hopped back to OpenAI. Palo Alto-based xAI recently acquired X, previously Twitter, and gave the mixed entity a valuation of $113 billion. The all-stock transaction raised some eyebrows however is a good deal if you’re betting on Musk’s empire.

Emmett Shear — Stem AI

Emmett Shear is the previous CEO of Twitch who was OpenAI’s interim CEO in November 2023 for just a few days earlier than Sam Altman rejoined the company. Shear is engaged on his own stealth startup, called Stem AI, TechCrunch revealed in 2024. Though there are few particulars about its exercise and fundraising to date, it has already attracted funding from Andreessen Horowitz.

Andrej Karpathy — Eureka Labs

Pc imaginative and prescient professional Andrej Karpathy was a founding member and analysis scientist at OpenAI, leaving the startup to join Tesla in 2017 to steer its autopilot program. Karpathy can also be well-known for his YouTube videos explaining core AI ideas. He left Tesla in 2024 to found his own education technology startup, Eureka Labs, a San Francisco-based startup that’s constructing AI instructing assistants.

Jeff Arnold — Pilot

Jeff Arnold labored as OpenAI’s head of operations for 5 months in 2016 earlier than co-founding San Francisco-based accounting startup Pilot in 2017. Pilot, which targeted initially on doing accounting for startups, last raised a $100 million Series C in 2021 at a $1.2 billion valuation and has attracted traders like Jeff Bezos. Arnold labored as Pilot’s COO till leaving in 2024 to launch a VC fund.

David Luan — Adept AI Labs 

David Luan was OpenAI’s engineering VP till he left in 2020. After a stint at Google, in 2021 he co-founded Adept AI Labs, a startup that builds AI instruments for workers. The startup last raised $350 million at a valuation north of $1 billion in 2023, however Luan left in late 2024 to oversee Amazon’s AI agents lab after Amazon hired Adept’s founders.

Tim Shi — Cresta 

Tim Shi was an early member of OpenAI’s group, the place he targeted on constructing protected synthetic basic intelligence (AGI), in keeping with his LinkedIn profile. He labored at OpenAI for a 12 months in 2017 however left to discovered Cresta, a San Francisco-based AI contact heart startup that has raised over $270 million from VCs like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others, in keeping with a press release.

Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan — Covariant

The trio all labored at OpenAI in 2016 and 2017 as analysis scientists earlier than founding Covariant, a Berkeley, California-based startup that builds basis AI fashions for robots. In 2024, Amazon hired all three of the Covariant founders and a few quarter of its employees. The quasi acquisition was viewed by some as a part of a broader development of Massive Tech making an attempt to keep away from antitrust scrutiny. 

Maddie Corridor — Dwelling Carbon

Maddie Corridor labored on “particular initiatives” at OpenAI however left in 2019 to co-found Dwelling Carbon, a San Francisco-based startup that goals to create engineered vegetation that may suck extra carbon out of the sky to battle local weather change. Dwelling Carbon raised a $21 million Sequence A spherical in 2023, bringing its complete funding till then to $36 million, in keeping with a press release.

Shariq Hashme — Prosper Robotics

Shariq Hashme labored for OpenAI for 9 months in 2017 on a bot that would play the favored online game Dota, per his LinkedIn profile. After just a few years at data-labeling startup Scale AI, he co-founded London-based Prosper Robotics in 2021. The startup says it’s engaged on a robotic butler for folks’s houses, a sizzling development in robotics that different gamers like Norway’s 1X and Texas-based Apptronik are additionally engaged on.

Jonas Schneider — Daedalus

Jonas Schneider led OpenAI’s software program engineering for robotics group however left in 2019 to co-found Daedalus, which builds superior factories for precision elements. The San Francisco-based startup raised a $21 million Series A last year with backing from Khosla Ventures, amongst others.

Margaret Jennings — Kindo

Margaret Jennings labored at OpenAI in 2022 and 2023 till she left to co-found Kindo, which markets itself as an AI chatbot for enterprises. Kindo has raised over $27 million in funding, final raising a $20.6 million Sequence A in 2024. Jennings left Kindo in 2024 to move product and analysis at French AI startup Mistral, in keeping with her LinkedIn profile.