Move over, PayPal mafia: There’s a new tech mafia in Silicon Valley. As the startup behind ChatGPT, OpenAI is arguably the biggest AI player in town. The company is reportedly now in talks to finalize a $100 billion deal, valuing the company at more than $850 billion.
Many employees have come and gone since the company first launched a decade ago, and some have launched startups of their own. Among these, some have become top rivals (like Anthropic), while others, just on investor interest alone, have managed to raise billions without even launching a product (see, Thinking Machine Labs).
In January, Aliisa Rosenthal, OpenAI’s first sales leader, spoke a little bit about this growing network. She, like the other OpenAI alums who did not become founders, decided to become an investor and said she was going to tap into the ex-OpenAI founder network to look for deal flow. We know Peter Deng, OpenAI’s former head of consumer products (and now general partner at Felicis) already has.
Below is a roundup of the major startups founded by OpenAI alumni, in alphabetical order. And we are certain this list will grow over time.
David Luan — Adept AI Labs
David Luan was OpenAI’s engineering VP until he left in 2020. After a stint at Google, in 2021 he co-founded Adept AI Labs, a startup that builds AI tools for employees. The startup last raised $350 million at a valuation north of $1 billion in 2023, but Luan left in late 2024 to oversee Amazon’s AI agents lab after Amazon hired Adept’s founders.
Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and John Schulman — Anthropic
Siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in 2021 to form their own startup, San Francisco-based Anthropic, that has long touted a focus on AI safety. OpenAI co-founder John Schulman joined Anthropic in 2024, pledging to build a “safe AGI.” The company has since become OpenAI’s biggest rival and just raised a $30 billion Series G, nabbing a $380 billion valuation in the process. IPO rumors are also swirling, as the company reportedly prepares for a public listing that could come sometime this year. (OpenAI is also allegedly preparing for an IPO this year and is maybe even trying to beat Anthropic to the public market.)
Rhythm Garg, Linden Li, and Yash Patil — Applied Compute
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