Move over, PayPal mafia: Theres a new tech mafia in Silicon Valley.
As the start-up behind ChatGPT, OpenAI is probably the biggest AI player in the area.
Its meteoric increase to a $300 billion appraisal has actually stimulated numerous employees to leave the AI giant to develop startups of their own.The hype around OpenAI is so high that some of these start-ups, like Ilya Sutskevers Safe Superintelligence and Mira Muratis Thinking Machines Lab, have actually been able to raise billions of dollars without even releasing a product.But there are lots of other startups in the OpenAI mafia environment.
These range from AI search giant Perplexity to xAI, the new owner of X (formerly Twitter.) Theres likewise smaller sized clothing with some futuristic strategies, like Living Carbon, which is producing plants that suck more carbon out of the atmosphere, or Prosper Robotics, which is building a robotic butler.Below is a roundup of the most notable startups established by OpenAI alumni.Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and John Schulman AnthropicSiblings Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in 2021 to form their own start-up, San Francisco-based Anthropic, that has long promoted a focus on AI safety.
Later, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman signed up with Anthropic in 2024, promising to construct a safe AGI.
OpenAI reportedly stays several times bigger than Anthropic by profits ($3.7 billion compared to $1 billion for 2024, The Information reported).
However Anthropic has quickly grown to become OpenAIs biggest rival and was valued at $61.5 billion in March 2025.
Ilya Sutskever Safe SuperintelligenceOpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left OpenAI in May 2024 after he was reportedly part of an unsuccessful effort to change CEO Sam Altman.
Shortly later, he co-founded Safe Superintelligence, or SSI, with one goal and one product: a safe superintelligence, he says.
Information about what precisely the start-up is up to are scant: It has no product and no revenue.
But financiers are clamoring for a piece anyway, and its had the ability to raise $2 billion, with its most current valuation apparently rising to $32 billion this month.
SSI is based in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.Mira Murati Thinking Machines LabMira Murati, OpenAIs CTO, left OpenAI last year to discovered her own business, Thinking Machines Lab, which emerged from stealth in February 2025, announcing (rather slightly) that it will develop AI thats more customizable and capable.
The San Francisco AI startup has no product or revenue however a lot of previous top OpenAI researchers and is reportedly in the process of raising a huge $2 billion seed round valuing it at $10 billion, minimum.Aravind Srinivas PerplexityAravind Srinivas worked as a research scientist at OpenAI for a year till 2022, when he left the business to co-found AI online search engine Perplexity.
His start-up has actually drawn in a string of high-profile investors like Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, although its also caused controversy over declared dishonest web scraping.
Perplexity, which is based in San Francisco, is currently raising about $1 billion at an $18 billion assessment as of March 2025.
Kyle Kosic xAIKyle Kosic left OpenAI in 2023 to end up being a co-founder and infrastructure lead of xAI, Elon Musks AI startup that offers a rival chatbot, Grok.
In 2024, nevertheless, he hopped back to OpenAI.
Palo Alto-based xAI just recently got X, formerly Twitter, and provided the combined entity an appraisal of $113 billion.
The all-stock deal raised some eyebrows but is a good deal if youre banking on Musks empire.Emmett Shear Stem AIEmmett Shear is the former CEO of Twitch who was OpenAIs interim CEO in November 2023 for a few days before Sam Altman rejoined the company.
Shear is dealing with his own stealth start-up, called Stem AI, A Technology NewsRoom exposed in 2024.
There are couple of information about its activity and fundraising so far, it has actually currently attracted financing from Andreessen Horowitz.Andrej Karpathy Eureka LabsComputer vision professional Andrej Karpathy was an establishing member and research scientist at OpenAI, leaving the start-up to join Tesla in 2017 to lead its auto-pilot program.
Karpathy is also widely known for his YouTube videos explaining core AI concepts.
He left Tesla in 2024 to discovered his own education innovation start-up, Eureka Labs, a San Francisco-based start-up that is developing AI teaching assistants.Jeff Arnold PilotJeff Arnold worked as OpenAIs head of operations for five months in 2016 before co-founding San Francisco-based accounting startup Pilot in 2017.
Pilot, which focused initially on doing accounting for start-ups, last raised a $100 million Series C in 2021 at a $1.2 billion evaluation and has actually drawn in investors like Jeff Bezos.
Arnold worked as Pilots COO until leaving in 2024 to release a VC fund.David Luan Adept AI LabsDavid Luan was OpenAIs engineering VP till he left in 2020.
After a stint at Google, in 2021 he co-founded Adept AI Labs, a startup that develops AI tools for employees.
The start-up last raised $350 million at an appraisal north of $1 billion in 2023, however Luan left in late 2024 to manage Amazons AI representatives laboratory after Amazon worked with Adepts founders.Tim Shi CrestaTim Shi was an early member of OpenAIs team, where he concentrated on building safe synthetic basic intelligence (AGI), according to his LinkedIn profile.
He operated at OpenAI for a year in 2017 but delegated found Cresta, a San Francisco-based AI contact center startup that has actually raised over $270 million from VCs like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others, according to a press release.Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan CovariantThe trio all worked at OpenAI in 2016 and 2017 as research scientists before establishing Covariant, a Berkeley, California-based start-up that builds foundation AI designs for robotics.
In 2024, Amazon hired all three of the Covariant founders and about a quarter of its personnel.
The quasi acquisition was viewed by some as part of a wider pattern of Big Tech trying to prevent antitrust scrutiny.Maddie Hall Living CarbonMaddie Hall dealt with special tasks at OpenAI however left in 2019 to co-found Living Carbon, a San Francisco-based start-up that aims to create crafted plants that can draw more carbon out of the sky to combat climate modification.
Living Carbon raised a $21 million Series A round in 2023, bringing its overall financing till then to $36 million, according to a press release.Shariq Hashme Prosper RoboticsShariq Hashme worked for OpenAI for 9 months in 2017 on a bot that could play the popular video game Dota, per his LinkedIn profile.
After a couple of years at data-labeling startup Scale AI, he co-founded London-based Prosper Robotics in 2021.
The start-up says its working on a robotic butler for individuals homes, a hot pattern in robotics that other gamers like Norways 1X and Texas-based Apptronik are also working on.Jonas Schneider DaedalusJonas Schneider led OpenAIs software engineering for robotics team however left in 2019 to co-found Daedalus, which builds innovative factories for precision parts.
The San Francisco-based startup raised a $21 million Series An in 2015 with backing from Khosla Ventures, amongst others.Margaret Jennings KindoMargaret Jennings worked at OpenAI in 2022 and 2023 up until she left to co-found Kindo, which markets itself as an AI chatbot for business.
Kindo has actually raised over $27 million in financing, last raising a $20.6 million Series A in 2024.
Jennings left Kindo in 2024 to head product and research at French AI startup Mistral, according to her LinkedIn profile.